Talk:Malnutrition
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[edit] Malthusian Theory Incorrectly Dismissed
The article's statement that "This Malthusian argument has long since been refuted" does not appear to be reflected in the Wikipedia article about Malthusian_catastrophe. Although that article does have a section for criticism of the theory, the main article on the theory does not at all support your statement from this article as quoted here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.46.43.230 (talk) 00:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
[edit] POV section
The section marked is POV in the last 3 paragraphs (especially the last 2) are POV ("These concepts should be taken with a grain of salt. The idea that producing all the food internally increases food security and that foreign trade increases food insecurity and malnutrition is against the facts."), without sources or footnotes, without wikilinks, uses strange language ("are keen to believe", lots of "e.g."s, "i.e."s and parantheses, which are not in a accordance with WP:MOS) and is speculative ("Part of that economic development would probably encourage local farmers..." and "Long-term foreign food aid, instead, may discourage local production and distort markets."). It also seems to present the solutions as simple, if only the author's POV were followed. Ufwuct 22:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I respect your ideas and beliefs (and agree with you no doubt); however, you do like to critize, so. Not meant as an offense, of course, simply an innocent observation. Anyways, good luck on your continued projects. Hiyoyou 06:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Ufwuct; this section may very well be 100% accurate, however it reads not like an objective encyclopedic entry, but like an OpEd piece. The various viewpoints should be presented neutrally and without bias. Jpmacd 09:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
More POV: "There is a range of opinions as to why [malnutrition] is so persistent. Organizations such as Food First raise the issue of food sovereignty and claim that every country on earth (with the possible minor exceptions of some city-states) has sufficient agricultural capacity to feed its own people, but that the 'free trade' economic order associated with such institutions as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank prevent this from happening." There are no sources for the IMF and WB preventing every country on earth from feeding their own people; and it explicitly says "opinions" in the first sentence. Any objections to the removal of this paragraph? Entbark (talk) 15:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Statements removed
I've removed a couple of statistical statements totally unsupported by any references. Half the article could probably be deleted the way it stands, though it would be better to try to find references.
- Hunger is the second most common cause of death in Africa. (isn't hunger a psychological state, not a cause of death?)
- As of 2006 there are more overweight people than undernourished people in the world.
If people add further unreferenced material, please revert it and tell them to take a look at WP:Citing sources. Richard001 07:38, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I love to eat so stop being racist agains fat people —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.82.39.2 (talk) 01:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Genetic engineering
While I'm here, some mention of G.E. might be useful, I understand scientists are working on plants with higher nutritional value, such as rice with higher levels of vitamin A to help malnourished populations. Richard001 09:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Confusion malnutrition / undernutrition
Hello,
It seems to me that the article is confusing "malnutrition" (ie inadequate diet, including deficiencies in VM, or obesity) and "undernutrition", which refers to the "world hunger" everybody talks about. I am currently improving the French articles on this topic, and I find it important to distinguish the two terms. About 850 million people are "undernourished" (or "are hungry") while malnutrition can affect several billion people (3.5b for iron deficiency, 2b iodine, etc.) and is worldwide (obesity found in developed countries).
I don't think I can really do much for these articles in English but I wanted to highlight the problem. Thanks, le Korrigan →bla 09:17, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I completely agree with Korrigan, there is a big confusion here, I was searching for malnutrition and this article came up, but the title should be undernutrition. I was doing some research about malnutrition and even is it hard to believe many big countries suffer malnutrition by the called junk food; lack of trace minerals in many food; bad dietary habits; refined food as sugar, fluor; etc. Do not be confuse!
[edit] @ Neutrality
The article itself has a tag saying that neutrality is disputed. Addressing this, I'd like to see more balance concerning the difference between the WHO measurement, which is output-oriented, and the FAO measurement, which is input-oriented. The problem is, however, that it is hard to distinguish between fact and opinion here. One thing that is definitely missing here, and was the reason I came in the first place, is the formula for the WHO-measurement. Wasting, stunting and z-score should definitively be 'spelled' out here. However, I do not have everything readily available here. :-( --Asdirk 16:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] World Caloric Output
I read the fact that the world produces enough calories to give everyone 2800 per day if there was a better system of distribution. (Or incentive to distribute it.)
I was asked to provide a source and came up with this one with Google which provides sources and additional information.
Calculating the world caloric output is probably impossible, but this information seems relevant to this article. I'm not sure where it should go, though. --Demonesque 21:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Measures to reduce malnutrition and neutrality
The article would benefit from expanding on the solutions beyond food aid, i.e. supplementation, public health measures, fortification, dietary diversification, and from compressing the inappropriate weight currently given to Spirulina Platensis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bedrock (talk • contribs) 10:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Spirulina
The article overall lacks organization but there is a particular mention of Spirulina and IISAM who advocate its use. A mention of Spirulina's efficacy in combating malnutrition is really a topic for the Spirulina article and the famous people who advocate it belong on the IISAM article, not on the malnutrition article. A link both those pages in the links section is reasonable, but it shouldn't really be in the main body. --128.232.235.244 (talk) 02:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Recentism
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This article or section may be slanted towards recent events. Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective. (September 2008) |
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Malnutrition has been a common experience for humankind since the begining and that should be put in context. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 14:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Protein energy malnutrition remedies
Perhaps beans can be advocated as a suitable staple crop to prevent protein malnutrition? Can be given after diets as plumpynut (which also contain high amounts of kcalories) have worked and the digestion is again appropriate. Perhaps cheeses are another appropriate foodstuff, as they contain both high amounts of kcalories aswell as considerable protein levels (depending on type of cheese). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.185.158 (talk) 15:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
In addition, fraction 1 protein; which can be made by making a paste from tabacco leaves may be a suitable remedy. It was invented by Shuh Sheen of the Kentucky University see http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf00061a023 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.181.143 (talk) 08:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
[edit] further reading section
for people that want to learn moreMatsuiny2004 (talk) 22:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
[edit] inter vs intra
inter-uterine growth restrictions ought to read: intra-uterine (within the uterus and not among uteri(?pl?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.171.165.92 (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Orange hair?
Why is there absolutely no mention of orange hair in this article? That was the only fact I really thought I knew about malnutrition, but even if it's not true, there's no section dispelling it. The word 'hair' is not present in the article. 71.236.97.142 (talk) 22:16, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
[edit] How is Malthus "refuted" by Sen et al?
Malthus advanced a generic, very plausible theory - that when you run out of land and yield increases, you get malnutrition. Malthus did NOT, for the record, say that the famine of the year so-and-so in India was caused specifically by land shortage or by overpopulation. So it's perfectly fine that Sen et al have concluded that a particular famine is not really "Malthusian" but maybe is due to unequality or lack of aid or whatever. Well, and let's say the famine in China during Great Leap Forward was not Malthusian either, it was mostly government-made. One way or the other, Malthus's theory still stands and can be used to explain other times and other situations, both in the present and in the future. E.g. the Great Famine of 1315–1317 in Europe due to many years of bad weather devastated the whole European region (which at the time was overpopulated given the contemporary technology), rich and poor alike. It wasn't like the evil rich people stole all the grain - there just wasn't much grain to go about, not enough. Cue Malthus... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.104.52 (talk) 04:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Numbers ?
How many people exactly are affected by malnutrition ? This is atleast higher than 1 in 6 see http://www.documentariesworldwide.com/?p=259 FAO stating starvation figures are 1 billion people
Overeating is also a form of malnutrition of which the richer part of the population is affected by. I'm guessing that 50%-25% could be exempt from malnutrition, giving a number of 75% ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.243.178.120 (talk) 07:54, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Questionable sources
Under Effects -> Mortality I read: "The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed and one-third is starving. [25]" The source was http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm.
I question this statement. The source is not WHO.
The statement seems to contradict other numbers in the article too. Just under one billon people are said to be undernourished. Starvation is an extreme form of malnutrition. So I don't see how more than two billion could be starving. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.16.193.254 (talk) 04:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Update: I found the original source at http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/malnutrition/en/. It does state that malnutrition affects on in three people but takes a very wide definition. If someone wants to add it back to the article, feel free, but it should definitely not say that one in three is starving. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.16.193.254 (talk) 07:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
[edit] hunger in united states
The usda just released a new report on hunger in the usa (on nov 16 2009) that changes some of the stats in the us hunger section. Specifically, the 1 in 6 children are at risk of hunger in the usa is now "nearly 1 in 4" (actually 22.5%, which is between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5). If no one edits sooner, I'll change over my holiday break, but I'm just too busy to edit the article today. source: http://www.strength.org/childhood_hunger/news/even_more_americans_going_hungry/ Also, another statistic that came out recently is that 1 in 2 us children experience living in a household with food stamps by age 20. Again, I'll editi n december if no one edits this into the article first. source: http://www.strength.org/childhood_hunger/news/food_stamps_help_stave_off_hunger_in_many_us_homes/
Incidentally, the topic of hunger in developed nations seems to have enough content to warrant an article all on its own. Unless someone argues otherwise, when I come back in december, I may pull this out into a separate article. — Eric Herboso 18:33, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
