Deficit

18/3/2008

I'm crunching statistics from the clinic records, in this last leg of my term here in Timor. An alarming 40% of the children I’ve treated are growth retarded.

Due to starvation.
Not the hollow-eyed skin-and-bones frank hunger that's familiar from TV images of '90s Ethiopia; but an insiduous, chronic lack of protein and energy foods that manifests itself in frequent illnesses and poor growth. The resulting physical and mental deficits are significant, and permanent.
Malnutrition here is rare in infants until about a year of age – when they’re abruptly displaced from the breast by a new arrival.

[Vexation]

The staples, cassava and corn, are both mostly fibre and water. So toddlers may fill their stomachs three times a day and still effectively starve.

[Breakfast/lunch/dinner: cassava, salt and chilli]

Concerned mothers stream to the clinic seeking ‘vitamins’ to fix their skinny kids, which I steadfastly refuse to dispense. The solution is upping the energy content of their meals. I’m on a campaign to encourage mothers to include a tablespoon of cooking oil in every meal.
Awkward. It’s exactly what I wouldn’t be advising back in childhood-obesity-smitten Singapore.

-raj