Social Implications of Nutrition and Disease

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Abstract
The associated malnutrition and infectious disease of early childhood in less developed countries is a strong limiting factor in their economic and social progress. Together these disorders interfere with physical growth and development; evidence accumulates that they also have an inhibitory effect on mental maturation. The difficulty centers in the first two years of life, exaggerated by a synergism between the two diseases. The excess morbidity and mortality associated with short intervals between births, large families, and in some places, differential rates of illness and death between boys and girls, are features which further a social pathology. As deaths tend to decrease with improved medical care, morbidity persists at high levels, as do birth rates. One result is a growing population pressure. The quality of survival gathers added significance; many children now live who formerly would have died. This gives added importance to occurrence of impaired growth and development, to questions of future mental capacity and the potentiality for economic and creative productivity within a population. Malnutrition and infectious disease are so distinctly a sociomedical problem, in origin and in after-effects, that control measures require consideration of both elements.

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