acceptability and actual utilization of food and 

 nutrition programs. Sortie of the complex 

 interrelationships are illustrated by breastfeeding, 

 which involves not only the nutritional status of the 

 infant, but also considerations of maternal fertility, 

 child spacing, health and economics, and the woman 1 s 

 role in the family, industry, and education. Pecent 

 data have helped to document and clarify the linkages 

 between breastfeeding and longer birth intervals 

 (Berman et al. 1972) . There is also some evidence that 

 breastfeeding is associated with antibody protection 

 and reduced likelihood of bacteriologic contamination 

 which serve to protect the infant, lower infant 

 mortality, and help reduce the necessity to have a 

 large family in order to insure the survival of a given 

 number of children. Associated health benefits include 

 reduced incidences of gastroenteritis and respiratory 

 diseases in children, in part due to less contamination 

 from unclean bottles and less dependence upon curative 

 medical services. In general, improved nutritional 

 status in children significantly increases their 

 chances of surviving diarrheal, respiratory, and other 

 infectious diseases (Berg and Muscat 1973). 



The relatively low priority given to nutrition in 

 the social science and medical education adds to 

 nutrition problems. One factor inhibiting a shift in 

 emphasis is that many social scientists resist and look 

 down on "applied" work, which is currently 

 underemphasized in training curricula. 



Rationale for Selecting this Topic 



Societies with skewed income distributions and 

 inadequate access to food on the part of the poor can 

 make their largest impact on the nutritional status of 

 women and children (and indeed on the population as a 

 whole) by dealing directly with distributional issues. 

 The potential for effective action on these issues can 

 be viewed from two directions. On the one hand, the 

 scope for action is tremendous. significantly improved 

 maternal and child nutrition could help reduce infant 

 mortality rates in developing countries from the 

 present 50-250 per 1,000 to levels approaching those of 

 the developed world (10-30 per 1,000). On the other 

 hand, the problems of achieving success on a global 

 scale are large and complicated; FAO calculates, for 

 example, that more than 300 million children suffer 

 from grossly retarded physical growth. On balance, 

 however, this panel feels that appropriate scientific 

 and technological interventions can have a major impact 

 on nutritional status (Scrimshaw 1974, Puffer and 

 Serrano 1973) . 



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