Reports the findings of a comprehensive study of the impact of developmental transition on food patterns, nutrition, and health status in South-East Asian countries. Authored by a leading expert in nutrition, the study considers the complex interactions between health and nutrition within the context of changing socioeconomic and environmental conditions. Addressed to researchers as well as policy makers, the study evaluates trends over the past four decades in an effort to identify key problems, pinpoint causes, predict future trends, and map out an agenda of priorities and goals for the turn of the century. Specific nutrition programmes in individual countries are also critically assessed in a search for approaches that have proved their workability. The opening chapters examine the consequences of demographic change, trends in food production and consumption, and changes in the profile of malnutrition over the past four decades. On the positive side, the report notes several significant improvements in food production and distribution that have contributed to a major reduction of severe forms of protein-energy malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency. A chapter devoted to new dimensions of old problems concentrates on the goitre syndrome, hypovitaminosis A, and iron deficiency anaemia, concluding that these problems could be eliminated using relatively inexpensive, time-tested, and proven technologies well within the means, resources, and competence of even the poorest countries of the region. The second half of the book, devoted to the consequences of development, includes chapters tracing the impact on health and nutrition of environmental degradation, increasing urbanization, demographic transition, including the ageing of populations, and the rising incidence of degenerative diseases and cancer. Arguing that sustainable development depends on sustainable technologies, the concluding chapters establish priorities and propose a number of far-sighted solutions, tailored to socioeconomic and environmental conditions, and based on self-reliance rather than dependence on outside aid.

DC.SEARO

eng.

WHODOC

WHO monograph

4