The Consequences of Hidden Hunger for Individuals and Societies

The author is the 1991 laureate of the World Food Prize the foremost international award recognizing outstanding individual achievement in improving the quality quantity or availability of food in the world. Dr. Scrimshaw is the first nutritionist to receive the prize with all earlier recipients recognized for efforts in production agriculture. He describes the magnitude and consequences of the various kinds of hidden hunger which still devastate a large proportion of the worlds population and demonstrates that the conquest of hidden hunger is essential to the human future. Sections discuss chronic undernutrition in adults protein-calorie malnutrition in children the prevalence of undernutrition in children and adults the importance of dietary protein micronutrient deficiencies the demographic significance of child mortality due to hunger overcoming hunger political mobilization for the conquest of hunger nutrient excesses and our obligation to the human future.