Infant Nutrition in the Subtropics and Tropics

The problem of nutrition requires an interdisciplinary approach involving the educator the agriculturalist the social worker the family planner the public health worker and others. Although the instruction in the correct principles of child nutrition continues to require the guidance and technical supervision of health personnel comm unity development and agricultural extension workers as well as other agents should be used to spread the message in the community. The failure of mothers to use the foods actually available to them and the fact that young children and pregnant and nursing mothers receive less of the available protein food than others are the primary deficits in the present infant feeding practices in developing countries. The statistics suggest that increasing urbanization and changes from breast to artificial feeding of infants have resulted in the earlier development of malnutrition in the 1st rather than the 2nd year of life. The artificial feeding will undoubtedly result in the child receiving a watery and over diluted milk heavily contaminated with bacteria and missing his/her major source of consumer tested protein food mothers milk. Instruction continues to support breast feeding as desirable in the attempt to stop the practice of artificial feeding. Al though protein remains a primary concern the current trend is to mixtures emphasizing the calorie content along with the protein composition. In the future as now the majority of the worlds population will receive most of their protein from their staple foods p articularly from cereals. During the last 15 years preventive measures against infections of nutritional importance have become an integral part of any nutritional program; awareness has grown of the need to modify and develop methods of prevention that are acceptable to the customs beliefs attitudes and cultural patterns of a particular community; and the necessity of demonstrating to parents that severe mal nutrition is curable by means of correct feeding has been recognized. Essential to all efforts directed toward the prevention of malnutrition is the education of medical personnel.