Quantifying the Nutrition Situation in Developing Countries

A description and assessment of methods used to quantify the nutrition situation in developing countries is offered. The findings and methodologies of postwar inquiries carried out by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the World Bank are summarized and compared and their discrepancies noted. The methodology of the early food studies is examined and criticized from a conceptual perspective and with regard to the acceptance of considerable underestimation of agricultural output in developing countries and over-estimation of food requirements. The distorted perception of world food status due to the tendency to exaggerate the importance of poor harvests is explored. The need to consider distribution of food along with quantity recent efforts to incorporate income factors in an effort to do this and remaining shortcomings of methodology and data are discussed. Research findings on the effect of income on diets and implications for particular countries are scrutinized. The use of household budget surveys to assess nutritional adequacy is discussed suggestions are made for their interpretation and future improvement and their use in measuring nutritional status through starchy staple substitution is examined using as examples surveys done in Sri Lanka Bangladesh Indonesia and Brazil. The differential vulnerability of household members to protein-energy malnutrition and problems of estimating its prevalence are then discussed. Implications of the findings for nutrition policy are explored.