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Nutrition and Poverty

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Nutrition and Poverty A NUTRITIONFOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT Nutrition and Poverty L AWRENCE H ADDAD POVERTY Brief 8 of 12 Malnutrition is responsible for much of the Nutrition is an excellent investment. Improved nutrition suffering of the peoples of the world. At least one-fifth empowers people and it empowers communities. In of the worldwide loss of years of life to death and to doing so it fuels the development process and leads to disability is due to undernutrition.When more specula- poverty reduction. tive estimates are made of the contributions of diet-related chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and hypertension and the various components of under- Empowering People for Poverty nutrition, some commentators place one half of global Reduction suffering at the door of malnutrition. In a globalizing world, the premium on innovation and creativity is higher than ever,and malnutrition undercuts Why Is Public Action Needed? both in a most savage way. Better nutrition improves intellectual capacity,and improved intellectual capacity The case for public action to eradicate malnutrition is increases an adult’s ability to access other types of a strong one, and one that can be forcefully made using assets that are essential for increases in labor productiv- either ethical or economic arguments. Public action to ity. An adult who is more productive has a larger set of reduce malnutrition is a moral imperative. Food and available livelihood options, which raises lifetime private nutrition are human rights, enshrined in various conven- earnings in a way that is robust to external shocks such tions (most recently the 1989 Convention on the Rights as disease, unemployment, or natural disaster.In of the Child). Governments have a duty to ensure that addition, improved nutrition status from conception to these dimensions of human well-being are realized. 24 months of age reduces private and public health care On the economic side, private markets for health, expenditures in ways that reverberate throughout the life education, sanitation, and other determinants of good cycle. The intergenerational cycle of poverty is more nutrition are often thin and in any case are beyond the likely to be broken when babies get an adequate nutri- poor’s reach. Moreover,access to whatever services are tional head start. available is likely to be unequal, particularly along gender lines.Women—whose role is key to good No economic analysis can fully capture the benefits of nutrition throughout the life cycle—face discrimination such sustained mental,physical,and social development. in many parts of the world. At the micro level some cross-section studies have shown A NUTRITIONFOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT Brief 8 of 12 that the ratio of the percentage improve- adolescents; they are not aggregate estimates as we do ment in adult wage rates over the not know how the various component estimates of percentage improvements in adult undernutrition “add up”in terms of boosts to productivity; nutrition status is greater than one. Other and they omit losses due to overnutrition. studies over time have found that an increase in birth weight of one pound Diet-related chronic disease also has heavy costs. For leads to a 7 percent increase in lifetime China the costs amount to 2.4 percent of GDP (Figure 3). earnings for a sample of U.S.babies. How This, too, is a gross underestimate because it does not significant are these estimates at the take into account the lost work due to illness,only death. macro level? Investments in reducing fetal and infant malnutrition Some researchers have aggregated the generate the ultimate positive spillover effect—well- literature on how fetal and infant under- nourished children who are less likely to get diet-related nutrition affects children’s later school chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes in enrollment, educational attainment, adulthood and well-nourished mothers who are less cognitive ability,and lifetime earnings likely to give birth to undernourished children. Figure 4 and the literature on how adults’ nutrition shows the estimated link between fetal and childhood status affects their labor productivity. In undernutrition and chronic diseases for China and Sri this way they have attempted to capture Lanka. For China, childhood undernutrition is estimated the economic costs of undernutrition in to be responsible for one-third of diabetes and about POVERTY terms of gross domestic product (GDP) one-tenth of coronary heart disease and strokes. forgone. Estimates published in the 1990s for several Asian countries indicate that the losses to GDP from various compo- Empowering Communities nents of undernutrition can be as high as While better nutrition empowers people,the process 3 percent of national income (Figures 1 through which malnutrition is reduced can also and 2). However,these estimates are empower communities.Unlike most other types of undercounts: they omit some compo- human capital investment interventions,most nutrition nents of undernutrition such as vitamin A programs are community based. As communities deficiency and some age groups such as develop the capacity to undertake assessment,analysis, FIGURE 1: GDP LOSS FROM REDUCED ADULT PRODUCTIVITY FIGURE 2: GDP LOSS DUE TO IRON DEFICIENCY (1990S) DUE TO SOME FORMS OF UNDERNUTRITION (1990S) Cognitive losses Cognitive losses + loss in Undernutrition as measured 1.9 by growth failure 2.0 manual work 3.3 3.5 Iodine Deficiency 1.5 1.3 3.0 Iron Deficiency 1.1 1.1 2.5 1.0 0.8 0.9 2.0 1.5 1 1.1 0.5 1.0 0.6 0.3 0.5 0.1 Percentage loss in GDP 0.0 Percentage loss in GDP 0.0 Bangladesh India Pakistan Pakistan Vietnam Source: Horton 1999 Source: Horton 1999 2 A NUTRITIONFOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT and action for nutrition interventions,they can apply this Brief 8 of 12 capacity to other types of development intervention. Community-based nutrition programming can also build trust and a shared set of values and norms. These elements of “social capital”may well prove to be important for people’s ability to generate income and manage risk. They may also help empower communities to hold increasingly decentralized governments to account and to empower the decentralized governments to hold the communities to their end of the bargain. Qualitative data from a number of studies suggest this is the case. Quantitative evidence from South Africa and elsewhere shows that social capital enhances people’s ability to earn income and that community control helps Better-nourished individuals constitute improve the performance of poverty projects. the bedrock of a nation that respects human rights and strives for high labor Moreover,empowered communities have more to lose productivity. Well-nourished mothers are from disruptions and conflict. Reductions in malnutri- more likely to give birth to well-nourished tion serve to diminish one of the causes of conflict— children who will attend school earlier, particularly if those reductions are achieved through a learn more, postpone dropping out, marry community-led process. Conflict, whether civil or inter- and have children later,give birth to fewer POVERTY national, destroys people’s lives, their asset base, and and healthier babies, earn more in their their livelihoods. Moreover, as countries become more jobs, manage risk better,and be less likely connected than ever,instability in one country can to fall prey to diet-related chronic quickly spill over to others. diseases in midlife. Communities that are strengthened Conclusion through the community-based nutrition Improved nutrition is central to improved income gener- programming process are more likely to ation, poverty reduction, and more rapid development. access central resources and are more FIGURE 3: ECONOMIC COSTS OF DIET RELATED FIGURE 4: CHRONIC DISEASE AND CHILDHOOD MALNUTRITION CHRONIC DISEASE, CHINA AND SRI LANKA, 1995 CHINA AND SRI LANKA, 1995 China China (a) Sri Lanka Sri Lanka 40 2.4 33.9 2.5 35 30 2.0 1.6 25 18.4 1.5 20 11.3 1.0 0.8 15 9.2 10 0.5 0.2 0.25 2.4 Percentage of GDP 0.05 5 1.4 0.0 0 to childhood undernutrition Costs of lost Hospital Total costs Percent of chronic disease due Coronary Diabetes Stroke work–death costs heart disease Source: Popkin, Horton and Kim 2000 Source: Popkin, Horton and Kim 2000 (a) Low birth weight and stunting 3 A NUTRITIONFOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT Brief 8 of 12 likely to use them efficiently in a wide Gardner,G.,and B.Halweil.2000.Underfed and overfed:The range of activities while bringing their global epidemic of malnutrition.Worldwatch Paper 150. expertise to bear on the development Washington,D.C.:Worldwatch Institute. process. Empowered and well-nourished communities are also less likely to be Gillespie,S.,and L.Haddad.2001.Attacking the double burden drawn into conflict with all its tragic of malnutrition in Asia and the Pacific. Policy Paper.Manila: consequences. In an increasingly inter- Asian Development Bank. connected world, the premium on good Haddad,L.,and H.Bouis 1991. The impact of nutritional nutrition is higher than ever. status on agricultural productivity: Wage evidence from the Philippines. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Suggested Reading Statistics 53 (1): 45–68. ACC/SCN (United Nations Administrative Horton,S.1999.Opportunities for investments in nutrition Committee on Coordination/Sub- in low-income Asia. Asian Development Review 17 (1,2): Committee on Nutrition). 2000.Fourth 246–273. report on the world nutrition situation. Geneva: ACC/SCN in collaboration with Maluccio,J.,L.Haddad,and J.May. 2000. Social capital IFPRI. and welfare in South Africa,1993-1998.Journal of Development Studies 36 (6): 54–81. Behrman,J.,and M.Rosenzweig.2001.The returns to increasing body weight. Popkin,B.M.,S.Horton,and S.Kim.2000.The nutrition POVERTY Unpublished paper,Department of transition and diet-related chronic diseases in Asia: Economics,University of Pennsylvania, Implications for prevention.
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