A large share of the population in many developing countries suffers from chronic undernutrition. This book provides a comparative study of undernutrition in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the two worst affected areas, and provides crucial advice for all those concerned in development worldwide. The book concentrates on the five challenges that undernutrition creates: what is undernutrition, who are the undernourished, where are the undernourished, when are people undernourished, and why are people undernourished. It begins by introducing the main paradigms and controversies of undernutrition and discussing the relationship between calorie intake/expenditure, work effort, body weight, and income. It details the methods of defining and measuring undernutrition, based on estimates of gaps between calorie intake and calorie requirements for households, and provides a parallel analysis of the main alternative approach to defining and measuring undernutrition, based on anthropometric assessment. It analyses the consequences and causes of anthropometric failure, and highlights the related policy issues. This is an immensely valuable resource for economists, policy-makers, development researchers and students.
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