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How do we improve nutrition in the developing world?
Despite advances in understanding how to tackle malnutrition, it still affects more than a billion people in developing countries. The latest spotlight from SciDev.Net 'The challenge of improving nutrition' looks at how this knowledge can be turned into action. It explains the underlying causes of malnutrition, highlights the role of micronutrients in preventing infectious disease, considers lessons learnt, and provides advice to policymakers.
A background article by Priya Shetty provides the facts and figures which illustrate the scale of the challenge. This is accompanied by a series of articles and commentaries written by international experts:
- Nutritional security is in the balance (Suresh Babu, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute).
- The 'hidden hunger' caused by climate change (Lewis Ziska, plant physiologist at the United States Department of Agriculture)
- Nutrition key to cutting infection rates (Andrew Thorne-Lyman and Wafaie Fawzi, nutrition researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States)
- Food safety is critical to nutrition security (Jørgen Schlundt, director of the Department of Food safety, Zoonoses and Foodborne Diseases at the WHO)
- Using genetics to tackle malnutrition (Jim Kaput, of the US Food and Drug Administration)
- Can GM crops feed the hungry? (Carol Campbell, Freelance science journalist )
The spotlight also provides links to policy briefs, links, definitions and a news archive.
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