Definition of Malnutrition: Malnutrition is the condition in which the people become weak and sick because of insufficient, excessive or unbalanced consumption of nutrients. A number of different nutritiondisorders may arise depending on which nutrients are insufficient and imbalance in the diet. The World Health Organization cites malnutrition as the gravest single threat to the world's public health. It Improving nutrition is widely regarded as the most effective form of aid. Emergency measures are include providing deficient micronutrients through fortified sachet powders, such as peanut and butter, or directly through supplements.
Causes of malnutrition: Some of the important causes of malnutrition are poverty, large population, inadequate production of food, giving importance to taste rather than the nutritive value of the food we eat and dietary practices.
Deficiency diseases and causes: Diseases which arise due to the lack of a nutrient like carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals etc in our diet are called deficiency diseases. Deficiency diseases are also called nutritional disorders.
Causes: There are a large number of factors which lead to the deficiency of precious nutrients in our diet. Some of the factors are man-made and some are biological or geographical factors. The important factors are discussed below:
1. Poor economic conditions lead to deficiency in nutrients: One of the major cause is the poverty among the people of our country. Due to poverty, many of our people are not able to buy sufficient food for their large families. This insufficient food leads to nutrient deficiencies which lead to ill health.
2 Wrong selection of food items leads to deficiency in nutrients: most people think that expensive foods like grapes and apples are more nutritious than cheaper foods like banana or spinach. But banana and spinach contain more nutrients than an equal amount of grapes or apples.
3.
Modern methods of refining and processing of food lead to deficiency in nutrients: the modern methods of refining foods such as rice and wheat flour lead to the deficiency of many health giving nutrients. When the foods are refined too much, then the outer covering of their grains are eliminated and hence the loss of vitamins and minerals take place. The brown rice contains a lot of vitamin Bl than polished rice which is deficient of vitamin Bl.
4.
Repeated washing of food materials or soaking in water for a long time leads to loss in nutrients: the water soluble vitamins like vitamin B-complex and vitamin C are dissolved out of food into water when the pulses and vegetables are washed repeatedly with water or kept soaked in water for a long time.
5.
Wasteful methods of cooking food lead to loss in nutrients: most of the vitamins are destroyed by prolonged heating and deep frying.
6.
Prolonged exposure of cut-fruits and vegetables to air leads to loss in nutrients: when we expose cut fruits and vegetables in air for prolonged periods, some of the vitamins are oxidised by air. Ex- Vitamin C.
Different deficiency diseases: the deficiency diseases can be mainly divided into three types.
They are as follows-
Protein energy deficiency diseases: the diseases caused by deficiency of proteins, carbohydrates and fats leads to protein- energy malnutrition. This nutritional disorder mainly affects the children in our country in the age group of 1 to 5 years. The most common symptoms of protein energy malnutrition is the retarded body growth of the child leading to loss of weight and height. The two main diseases are Kwashiorkar and Marasmus.
a)
Kwashiorkar: the term Kwashiorkar means "rejected child or "neglected child". It occurs due to the deficiency of proteins in the diet of the children. It develops when the first child displaced from the mother's breast milk, and after weaning from protein rich breast milk, the child from a poorer family is given only a diet consisting mainly of carbohydrates than proteins.
b)
Marasmus: marasmus occurs due to the deficiency of carbohydrates ,proteins and fats in the diet of the small children. This is due to the grossly inadequate diet. It occurs in infants of up to one year of age. This is because when baby is weaned away from breast milk and are subsequently given a less nutritive food which is deficient in proteins as well as carbohydrates and fats.
