Malnutrition occurs when a person does not consume a sufficient amount of food. Roughly 9 percent of the world's children suffer from being malnourished because they do not get the calories they need for energy and the nutrients essential for proper growth and maintenance of body tissues.
This topic is meaningful to me because there are children all over the world who suffer from malnutrition. Malnutrition can stem from a mother not eating healthy or properly during her pregnancy or children not having adequate amounts of foods to eat. These children are underweight and they don't have enough body tissues to help fight off diseases that may attack their bodies. Without proper nutrition, it can affect the child's brain development and cause marasmus. Their growth stops, body tissues waste away and the infant eventually dies. The right balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins including plenty of grains, fruits and vegetables that can reduce the risk of diseases.
In India, 42 percent of the children are underweight and 60 percent of the children are stunted due to inadequate nutrition during the mother's pregnancy. Research have found that poor nutrition is due to inappropriate feeding practices due to the ignorance about nutrition among Indian parents. Parents focus on providing their children cereals more than any other foods. Food prices have soared in India over the last six years, causing hardship for 455 million people who live below the poverty line. This has caused the level of malnutrition in children to be exceptionally high.
I don't see where the information that I have learned may impact my future work. The Head Start program that I work for ensures that all children receive healthy and nutritious meals for breakfast, lunch and snack. We offer trainings to families to learn how to cook healthy meals and how to shop and cook on a budget. If any families that we serve are having any hardships about not having any food or low on food to feed their children, we have resources available to assist them with this issue so that their families will not go hungry.
Resources
Berger, K.S. (2009). The Developing Person Through Childhood. (5th ed.). New York, NY: Worth
Publishers.
Mudur, G.S. (2012, January 11). Nutrition Surprise in Rich Kids. The Telegraph. Retrieved from
http://www.telegraphindia.com
I can't believe how many children in India are underweight and have stunted growth due to lacking food or proper nutrition from their mothers. I know that I really take for granted the availablity of food I have here in America and, luckily I have been taught how to eat healthy, especially when I have a baby. It is really sad to think children are only given cereal to eat because they are lacking so many nutrients from other food.
ReplyDeleteHi Tonya, I focused on malnutrition also and I was sadden by such numbers of malnutrition children in the developing countries. I also found that there are many different organizations that are helping to decrease the numbers of malnutrition in these countries.
DeleteHi Tonya,
ReplyDeleteMalnutrition is such an important yet overlooked topic. One of the biggest areas I can immediately think of is the school food program for NYC public schools. In efforts to keep the lunches healthy, junk food is not served and I must admit in our school, we receive what can be considered a substantially better alternative for lunch, as opposed to other schools. But, here's my problem. By law, any lunches we do not serve (hot lunches or sandwiches)must be thrown away. Instead of giving the extra lunches to the kids who may still be hungry (we can only serve one meal per student per lunch period b/c everything must be accounted for) and despite the fact that many of our kids do not get a home cooked meal for dinner. So we wind up sneaking and hiding any extra meals to give to those who need it. Yet so many speak of being concerned about malnutrition and you have lawmakers who would rather throw away perfectly good food rather than ensure that it goes to a deserving and needy family.