Malnutrition Kills 34 in Three years
Malnutrition killed 17 children and 17 adults over 65 between 2002 and 2006, a study shows. “It’s shameful that, in a country like this one, children still die of hunger,” said Ministry of Health expert Rosa MarĂa Novygrodt. The irony that far more children—one out of four—are overweight.
Poverty is blamed for the deaths. Novygrodt says that a few parents and aged adults cannot afford a diet to provide quality nourishment. Moreover, cases of malnutrition in babies of less than a year old has passed from 21 cases per 100,000 population to 28 cases. And anemia affects 28% of six year-olds in cities and rises to 33% in remote rural areas. And of all cases of malnutrition, 80% are in aged persons. The Ministry hopes to eradicate hunger in the country in all age groups by 2015.
Although the experts blame poverty, ignorance may account for at least some of both malnourished and obese children. Parents may not be watching their children’s diets or may not know that just eating a great deal does not guarantee good health. This reporter remember a case of a mother carrying an emaciated four-year-old in a small village in Guanacaste province during the early 1970s. The child had what appeared to the person untrained in medicine to have scurvy or rickets. When it was suggested that the child be fed fruit or fresh juice the young mother protested, “Oh, no! They say she’s too young.” The “they” turned out to be, not doctors, but her mother, as ignorant as her daughter.
But this is turning around because of government concern. Realizing that, as Novygrodt says, it is “shameful” for the young and the old to be undernourished in a country where fresh fruit and vegetables are cheap and plentiful, 400 doctors throughout the country will attend the Costa Rican Nutritional Symposium to be trained to educate parents as well as geriatric adults. At least, it is a start toward the goals of zero deaths.