{"id":7448,"date":"2019-06-12T22:02:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T05:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=7448"},"modified":"2019-06-13T04:22:50","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T11:22:50","slug":"post3-48","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=7448","title":{"rendered":"“The World\u2019s Malnourished Kids Don\u2019t Need a $295 Burger”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nicholas Kristof,\u00a0<\/span>Opinion Columnist, June 12, 2019<\/p>\n

A quarter of the world\u2019s children are stunted from inadequate diets,<\/em><\/p>\n

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A child at the Casa Jackson Hospital for Malnourished Children, in Antigua, Guatemala.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Credit<\/span>Daniele Volpe for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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ANTIGUA, Guatemala \u2014 Ra\u00fal is a happy preschooler, tumbling around among 4- and 5-year-olds, but something is off.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not his behavior, for it\u2019s the same as that of the other little kids. Rather, it\u2019s his face. The baby fat is gone, and although he\u2019s only 3 feet 5 inches tall, the height of an average 5-year-old, an older face seems grafted on.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, Ra\u00fal turns out to be 9. Malnutrition has left his body and mind badly stunted. He\u2019s one of almost one-quarter of all children worldwide who are stunted from malnutrition.<\/p>\n

Here in Guatemala, almost half of children are stunted. In some Mayan villages, it\u2019s 70 percent.<\/p>\n

In another world, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the restaurant <\/em><\/strong>Serendipity 3 offers<\/em><\/a><\/strong> a $295 hamburger. Alternatively, it sells a $214 grilled cheese sandwich and a $1,000 sundae.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cStunting is probably the best marker of child health inequality,\u201d Dr. Kirsten Austad<\/a> of the Maya Health Alliance told me. \u201cStunting is a key driver of intergenerational poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The big problem with stunting from malnutrition isn\u2019t that people are short but that they often have impaired brain development.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s like a 5-year-old,\u201d Rina Lazo Rodr\u00edguez, director of the Casa Jackson Hospital for Malnourished Children, said of Ra\u00fal. He is now living at the hospital and has never attended school, and staff members aren\u2019t sure to what extent he can recover physically or mentally.<\/p>\n

Studies find that malnourished children do less well in school, and the mental impairment is visible in brain scans.<\/p>\n

The implication is that billions of I.Q. points are lost to malnutrition, and that the world\u2019s greatest unexploited resource is not oil or gold but the minds of hungry children.<\/p>\n

For the diner who has everything, restaurants offer gold in food. A Dubai restaurant, for example, has <\/em><\/strong>sold <\/em><\/a><\/strong>a cupcake enveloped in gold leaf. The gold is tasteless (and nontoxic), so its only purpose is extravagant novelty and a glittering price \u2014 in this case, more than $1,000 per cupcake.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I\u2019m on my annual win-a-trip journey, in which I take a university student with me on a reporting trip. This year the winner is Mia Armstrong of Arizona State University, and we\u2019ve been dropping in on villagers in rural Guatemala \u2014 and seeing stunning levels of malnutrition. The problem isn\u2019t just shortage of calories but of vital micronutrients, like zinc, iron, iodine and vitamin A.<\/p>\n

Alas, the most boring word in the English language may be \u201cmicronutrients.\u201d And boring causes don\u2019t get addressed or funding.<\/p>\n

One girl we met, Ingrid, was 14 years old and 4 feet 7 inches tall. I asked her if she was in school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dropped out in the first grade,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

I asked her to write her name in my notebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t write my name,\u201d she responded.<\/p>\n

Sotheby\u2019s last year <\/em><\/strong>auctioned off<\/em><\/a><\/strong> a bottle of wine, a Roman\u00e9e Conti 1945 Domaine de la Roman\u00e9e-Conti. The label was stained and there were signs of seepage, but the single bottle sold for $558,000.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Shawn Baker of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation refers to \u201cthe 45 percent-1 percent disconnect.\u201d As he explained: \u201cMalnutrition is the underlying cause of 45 percent of deaths in children under 5, yet less than 1 percent of global foreign assistance goes to addressing undernutrition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bulk of the damage is done in the first 1,000 days \u2014 from conception through two years of life \u2014 and that damage is largely irreversible.\u201d Aside from cognitive impairment, stunted children grow up to have more health problems in adulthood, and stunted women deliver smaller babies, sometimes perpetuating the poverty cycle.<\/p>\n

The Ranch in Malibu, Calif., <\/em><\/strong>offers <\/em><\/a><\/strong>a luxury nine-night weight-loss program for $11,400 per person.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n