Mothers in the US, UK and other developed countries are concerned not only with if their kids eat, but, with what they eat. Balanced nutrition is so important. Pediatricians measure a child’s growth against statistical averages both physically and mentally. Children living at the poverty level in these countries eat well compared to children in many parts of Africa.
When I first started traveling to Africa, I tested my judgment by trying to guess the age of each child. It was a shock to discover I was almost always wrong. Boys and girls I thought were about eight based on height – told me they were actually twelve. What I was witnessing was not life-threatening malnutrition, it was a condition called stunting. These little ones were not going to bed hungry. However, I was meeting kids who weren’t getting adequate nutrition in their food.
An entire generation may not develop fully due to stunting. It’s true that some groups of people tend to be taller or shorter than others. For example, those in China tend to be shorter. However, one group living in Northern China is taller by a significant number of inches. Their stature is unrelated to nutrition. Stunting is directly related to poor nutrition and affects more than height. Children can fail to reach their intellectual potential, keeping them mired in poverty for life. In sub-Saharan Africa a frightening forty percent of the kids are stunted.
It is a cruel question. Should the focus of charitable works be on one group or the other? Should those currently being stunted receive more aid so they can grow up to be capable of helping to erase poverty in their homeland?
Should their need for more nutritional food be addressed rather than the need of babies dying for lack of food? It’s a Hitleresque question that no loving human being can be comfortable in answering. If you can help in any way, you can decide where your donation should go. You can help decide the fate of an entire generation of African children in one group or the other…
Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:West_Africa_(2169064405).jpg
