Child Development and Public Health

The area I chose under the public health umbrella is Nutrition and Malnutrition.  Nutrition, hunger, obesity, and malnutrition are very well used words of the public health sector these days. A baby needs good nutrition to stay healthy and grow healthy. Baby’s nutrition plays a major part in the brain development, the learning skills, as well as the effective functioning of different systems of the human body.

For the first four months of the life, a baby totally depends on the breast milk or formula. Then around four to six months of age, a baby is ready to start on solid food. By the first birthday, a healthy baby should be able to handle the foods that rest of the family eats. This is the average developmental routine of a growing baby. But there are more possibilities for change and differences from this norm.

When it comes to malnutrition, the simple explanation is that the children do not get age appropriate amount of calories. Malnutrition is the reason for a brain to not develop normally. Preventive diseases can be lethal for a malnourished child.  Marasmus is a disease that starts during the prenatal months. It basically stops the growth of the baby and eventually death happens. Kwashiorkor is another disease that happens due to the malnutrition after age one.

As an early-childhood educator, nutrition facts as well as malnutrition facts matter to me as I work with the children who are in both categories. Children are checked by their physicians before they come to the program regarding height, weight and other development factors, iron levels and toxic levels. The teachers have to measure weight and height and track the BMI numbers two times a year. So these facts are very important for me have a better understanding.

Combination of malnutrition and infections is the leading reason behind the death among the children of the developing countries.  For the nutrition and malnutrition topic from a different part of the world, I chose Tibet in Central Asia. It is the plateau of Central Asia and some calls it as the roof of the world. Situated north of Himalayas, two major neighboring countries are India and China. Economy of the country is mainly agriculture and tourism (recently much popular). It is one of the developing counties in the Central Asia worldly known especially for His Holiness Dalai Lama. After the Chinese government entering in 1951 Tibet is not an independent nation any more. Tibet is a very agricultural country, but having to face many difficulties regarding nutrition currently.  Tibet consists of urban area population, farming population and nomadic population. Most urban areas are sufficient with food and so called junk food as well. In the farming communities, they have access to meat, vegetables, fruits and milk. But with new laws they have to pay more taxes. In order to do that, they have to sell more crops. Selling more crops or meat always below the market price leaves much less for the family to survive. People are always trying to pay dues accordingly as they are in fear of the government. Nomadic families have to face the situation of following government rule of limited number of killing of their animals to sell and paying more money as taxes. Nomadic life style gives them less access to vegetables and fruits as well.  Less money in hand means limited opportunity to fulfill nutritional needs of the families.

These reasons have created plenty of health difficulties for the growing children as well as adults in Tibet. Physical and mental developments of hundreds of thousands of children are threatened by malnutrition. Recent findings show that Tibetan children’s short height does not have any connection to the high altitude of the nation or genetics of the population. It is all due to malnutrition. Vitamin D deficiency is the biggest reason behind it. Diarrhea and pneumonia are also two very common fetal diseases of growing children in the Tibet. Due to living hardships lots of Tibetan people are leaving their country to India and Nepal as refugees. This is just one situation that is happening in one country, but this represent what is going on with most developing countries in the world and how it affects the children of those nations.

http://www.terma.org/shambhalasun052004.pdf

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200102013440504
http://www.terma.org/NEW%20Media.html