[Demographic dynamics in the food-nutrition problem: the search for effective strategies in Latin America]. / La dinámica demográfica en la problemática alimentaria-nutricional: la búsqueda de estrategias effectiv as en América Latina.

ABSTRACT

PIP: This paper explores various strategies for development of more effective integrated programs of nutrition and population, based on the study of the interrelationship between the 2 problems and the experience acquired in the application of population studies to the process of food and nutrition planning in Central America and Panama. An implicit consensus has been reached that the major problems which confront Latin American governments as a result of present demographic and social trends are urban concentration and metropolization, underutilization of the labor force, extreme poverty, and insufficient basic services. Many existing studies of the links between population, nutrition, and socioeconomic development have had perspectives that have been too global or too partial to support policymaking and planning. Some new lines of study of women, the family, basic needs and extreme poverty, on 1 side, and the elaboration of diagnostic tools, target groups, goals, primary health interventions, integral rural development, and their evaluation, on the other, represent advances in the integration of population and nutrition problems into development planning. A model of interrelationships between demographic policies, malnutrition, and socioeconomic development gives highest priority to 4 demographic problems affecting nutrition: underutilization of the labor force, which affects purchasing power and consumption; growth of the marginal sector, poor population distribution and rapid urbanization; and high mortality among children under 5. A project developed in Central America and Panama from 1977-79 on the sociodemographic dimensions of food and nutrition planning was largely intended to improve institutional planning capacity. An illustrative table identifies 4 conditioning factors of malnutrition, including lack of adequate planning, insufficient food production and poor distribution and underutilization of available food by the body; provides examples of nutritional programs directed toward the problems, and lists expected effects of the programs on demographic variables. Another table outlines conditioning factors of malnutrition and related demographic variables. 5 areas requiring research in Central America are seasonal migration and malnutrition; malnutrition and infant mortality; composition and stability of the family and intrafamily food distribution; urban women's role and lactation; and agricultural density, rural displacement, and home production.