Urgent action needed to tackle malnutrition

Science can help design strategies to tackle malnutrition. The challenge is turning this knowledge into action. Improving nutrition in the developing world has never been more important. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, more than a billion people — one sixth of the global population — have a diet so poor they may be severely underweight, have stunted growth, or lack the vitamins and minerals they need for good health (all are aspects of severe malnutrition, or undernutrition).

Anybody Seen Pati?

If anybody knows Pati Castillo in Houston, please tell her to phone home. Pati is a 30-year-old Honduran whose children and other family members live in a gang-ridden slum here in the Honduran capital. (..) “One-sixth of the people on earth are hungry,” said Josette Sheeran, director of the United Nations World Food Program. “We’re seeing epidemics of child malnutrition.” Ms. Sheeran notes that evidence has mounted that babies who are malnourished in their first two years of life are likely to suffer lifelong intellectual impairments that later feeding can never overcome.