Malnutrition

Malnutrition is a general term for a medical condition caused by an improper or insufficient diet. It most often refers to undernutrition resulting from inadequate consumption, poor absorption, or excessive loss of nutrients, but the term can also encompass overnutrition, resulting from overeating or excessive intake of specific nutrients. An individual will experience malnutrition if the appropriate amount of, or quality of nutrients comprising a healthy diet are not consumed for an extended period of time. An extended period of malnutrition can result in starvation, disease, and infection.

Malnutrition is the lack of sufficient nutrients to maintain healthy bodily functions and is typically associated with extreme poverty in economically developing countries. It is a common cause of reduced intelligence in parts of the world affected by famine. ^[1] Malnutrition as the result of inappropriate dieting, overeating or the absence of a "balanced diet" is often observed in economically developed countries (eg. as indicated by increasing levels of obesity).

Most commonly, malnourished people either do not have enough calories in their diet, or are eating a diet that lacks protein, vitamins, or trace minerals. Medical problems arising from malnutrition are commonly referred to as deficiency diseases. Scurvy is a well-known and now rare form of malnutrition, in which the victim is deficient in vitamin C.

Common forms of malnutrition include protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) and micronutrient malnutrition. PEM refers to inadequate availability or absorption of energy and proteins in the body. Micronutrient malnutrition refers to inadequate availability of some essential nutrients such as vitamins and trace elements that are required by the body in small quantities. Micronutrient deficiencies lead to a variety of diseases and impair normal functioning of the body. Deficiency in micronutrients such as Vitamin A reduces the capacity of the body to resist diseases. Deficiency in iron, iodine and vitamin A is widely prevalent and represent a major public health challenge. An array of afflictions ranging from stunted growth, reduced intelligence and various cognitive abilities, reduced sociability, reduced leadership and assertiveness, reduced activity and energy, reduced muscle growth and strength, and poorer health overall are directly implicated to nutrient deficiencies. Also, another, although rare, effect of malnutrition is black spots appearing on the skin.

Hunger is the normal psychological response brought on by the physiological condition of needing food. Hunger can also affect the mental state of a person, and is often used as a metonym for general undernourishment.

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Politics

As of 2006, malnutrition continues to be a worldwide problem. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "850 million people worldwide were undernourished in 1999 to 2005, the most recent years for which figures are available" and the number of malnourished people has recently been increasing. An orange awareness ribbon is used to raise awareness of malnutrition in the world.^[2]It should be noted that FAO's use of the term 'undernutrition' is not the same as most people's understanding of malnutrition--the latter case suggests a thin or stunted individual, usually a measured condition in children under 5 years of age; the former (FAO's definition) refers to the amount of food available in a country at national level, compared with how many people live in that country.

There is a range of opinions as to why this problem is so persistent. Organizations such as Food First raise the issue of food sovereignty and claim that every country on earth (with the possible minor exceptions of some city-states) has sufficient agricultural capacity to feed its own people, but that the "free trade" economic order associated with such institutions as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank prevent this from happening. At the other end of the spectrum, the World Bank itself claims to be part of the solution to malnutrition, claiming that the best way for countries to succeed in breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition is to build export-led economies that will give them the financial means to buy foodstuffs on the world market.

Amartya Sen won his 1998 Nobel Prize in part for his work suggesting that famine is not typically the product of a lack of food; rather, famine may arise from problems in food distribution networks or from governmental policies in the developing world.

The politics of food trade and food security is often difficult to grasp. Many people are keen to believe that sending food aid to the poor of the world is a worthy idea, and that each country should produce their own food. These concepts should be taken with a grain of salt.

The idea that producing all the food internally increases food security and that foreign trade increases food insecurity and malnutrition is against the facts. Countries that have become more open to international trade in recent years (e.g. China, Vietnam or Peru) have greatly reduced the prevalence of undernourishment as measured by the FAO (food energy consumption below acceptable minimum) or as measured by the World Health Organization by the percentage of children under 5 who are stunted, wasted or underweight.^{[citation needed]} Countries that remained closed to external trade (e.g. North Korea) have not improved or have worsened their food situation. Some anti-globalization groups insist on "food sovereignty", i.e. the idea that each country should be physically self sufficient in every food item consumed by their people; by that account the US, the UK, Sweden or Belgium, and in fact almost all countries in the world would be quite food insecure, and a desert nation like Saudi Arabia should be in urgent need of international help and (with its current population) would not be viable as a country at all.

One policy adopted in recent decades to alleviate world malnutrition is food aid, i.e. the physical donation of food from rich to poor countries. From the rich donor countries' point of view, this is a suitable way to reduce excess supply created by domestic agricultural subsidies, stabilizing farm prices in rich countries, even if the cost of supplying the food to its final beneficiaries is often disproportionately high. Food aid may come for short-term emergencies (natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts and floods, or human-made like war and refugee flows) or in the form of a long-term program for an extended period. From the viewpoint of recipient countries, the value of food-aid depends on the form it takes. Emergency food aid is welcome, though aid in cash may also be welcome because the food may often be purchased locally in zones not affected by the emergency, thus benefitting local farmers. Long-term foreign food aid, instead, may discourage local production and distort markets. Long-term food-aid programs should be gradually replaced by aid oriented towards economic development, ultimately enabling poor people to become independent and earn enough income to purchase their food (either locally produced or commercially imported, whichever is more convenient). Part of that economic development would probably encourage local farmers to shift their cropping patterns in favour of cash crops for the domestic or world markets.

Recognising the inherent potential of the micro-alage Spirulina (Spirulina Platensis) to counter malnutrition and its severe negative impacts at multiple levels of the society especially in the developing and Least Developed Countries (LDC), the international community affirmed its firm conviction by joining hands to form the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition, IIMSAM^[3].

Spirulina because of its easy accessibility, affordability and capability to assimilate in the human body is a potent tool, not only to counter and combat malnutrition but also to stem the loss of human lives especially of children and enrich human capital.

IIMSAM’s Goodwill Ambassadors^[4] from across the globe like eminent footballer Diego Maradona, fashion designer Carolina Herrera, musician Chris de Burgh and the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, Tushar Gandhi of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation among others, help spread the mandate of the organisation and aspire to build a consensus to make Spirulina a key-driver to achieve food security and bridge the health divide throughout the world.

Causes of Malnutrition

• Famine
• Poverty
• Digestive disease
• Malabsorption
• Depression
• Anorexia nervosa
• Bulimia nervosa
• Untreated diabetes mellitus
• Fasting
• Coma
• Alcoholism and other certain drug addictions
• Over-consumption of fat and sugar
• Overpopulation^[5]
• Industrial food processing

Statistics

Number of undernourished people (million) in 2001-2003, according to the FAO, the following countries had 5 million or more undernourished people [1]:

Note: This table measures "undernourishment", as defined by FAO, and represents the number of people consuming (on average for years 2001 to 2003) less than the minimum amount of food energy (measured in kilocalories per capita per day) necessary for the average person to stay in good health while performing light physical activity. It is a conservative indicator that does not takes into account the extra needs of people performing extrenous physical activity, nor seasonal variations in food consumption or other sources of variability such as inter-individual differences in energy requirements.

Malnutrition and undernourishment are cumulative or average situations, and not the work of a single day's food intake (or lack thereof). This table does not represent the number of people who "went to bed hungry today."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that in 2003, only 1 out of 200 U.S. households with children became so severely food insecure that any of the children went hungry even once during the year. A substantially larger proportion of these same households (3.8 percent) had adult members who were hungry at least one day during the year because of their households' inability to afford enough food.[2]

Overweight vs undernourished

In 2006, Professor Popkin from the University of North Carolina, said there were now more overweight people across the world than undernourished people.^[6] He told the International Association of Agricultural Economists the number of overweight people had topped one billion (of which 300 million are obese), compared with 800 million undernourished.^[7] He added this transition from a starving world to an obese one was accelerating.

Effects

An extended period of malnutrition can result in starvation or deficiency diseases such as scurvy. Malnutrition increases the risk of infection and infectious disease; for example, it is a major risk factor in the onset of active tuberculosis.^[8]

Malnutrition appears to increase activity and movement in many animals - for example an experiment on spiders showed increased activity and predation in starved spiders, resulting in larger weight gain.^[9] This pattern is seen in many animals, including humans while sleeping.^[10] It even occurs in rats with their cerebral cortex or stomachs completely removed.^[11] Increased activity on hamster wheels occurred when rats were deprived not only of food, but also water or B vitamins such as thiamine^[12] This response may increase the animal's chance of finding food, though it has also been speculated the emigration response relieves pressure on the home population.^[10]

See also

• List of countries by percentage of population suffering from undernourishment
• Anorexia nervosa
• Auxology
• Cachexia
• Copenhagen Consensus
• Dehydration
• Essential nutrient
• Famine
• Famine response
• Hunger
• Illnesses related to poor nutrition
• Nutrition
• Plumpy'nut
• Poverty
• List of famines
• United Nations World Food Programme

References