Introduction
Malnutrition may be defined as the imbalance between supply and requirement of different nutritional components which may cause different complications in a living body.
Malnutrition may be of the following types:
- Under nutrition
- Over nutrition
- Imbalanced nutrition
- Specific deficiency
(a) Causes of malnutrition
The causes of malnutrition are as follows:
- Primary Causes
- Low income, low purchasing power
- Ignorance
- Scarcity of food supply
- Overpopulation
- Secondary Causes
- Obesity, Insulin resistance and diabetes
- Diarrhoea and Intestinal malabsorption
- Liver disorders
- Metabolic and Renal diseases
- Respiratory Infections
(b) Effect of malnutrition on outcome of pregnancy:
– Malnutrition in pregnant women increases the risk of poor pregnancy outcomes.
– It may cause obstructed labour, premature or low-birth-weight babies and postpartum haemorrhage.
– Severe anaemia during pregnancy is linked to increased mortality at labour.
– Low birth weight is the major cause of high infant mortality.
– The low birth weight babies who survive are also likely to suffer from diseases throughout their childhood.
– Growth retarded female who continuously give birth are more likely to give birth to low birth weight babies who later on grow to be malnutritionised.
(c) Physical, mental and intellectual development:
– Brain grows faster just before birth and during few months after birth.
– Malnourished child is less interested in what is going around him.
– Hungry and feels sleepy in classrooms.
– Fails in examination and less clever.
(d) Strategies to combat malnutrition:
- Strategy to increase food production:
– Use bare land for cultivation, improve method of farming, produce nutrients which could be used as foods by chemical engineering, genetic engineering, or through GMC/A.
- Food consumption and distribution system should be improved:
– Government action: legislation
– Food subsidies: artificial lowering of price
– Rationing scheme: to make food available in limited amounts
– Black markets: should controlled.
– Food enrichment program: food enriched or fortified by addition of def. nutrients.
– Welfare food program: for poor people as school meal, nursing mothers.
- Government procurement and distribution system should be improved:
– Transport problems
– Storage of foods
– Price control
- International aids should be properly utilized on social justice basis so that real target will benefit it.
- Nutrition education and functional literacy program:
– Teach about health education (people of all sector teach to their patients/pupils/consumers etc)
- Nutrition intervention program:
- Nutritional measures: such as food subsidies, rationing scheme, fortification, welfare food as school meal etc.
- Non-nutritional measures: radio, TV, newspapers, magazines plays role in extension of knowledge about importance of health education.