NUTRITION EDUCATION: A STATE-OF-THE-ART REVIEW
Robert C. Hornik
Malnourishment is widespread. According to the World Bank (1980), several hundred million people suffer from protein-energy malnutrition; hundreds of millions more suffer from the lack of certain micro-nutrients: iron, iodine and vitamin A, for example. The human cost, in early death, in physical and possibly mental retardation, in debilitating illness, and in low energy levels affecting productivity, is awesome. The effects of malnutrition seem to be particularly evident among very young children. Many sources detail both the nature and the consequences of this malnutrition problem and examine alternative policy options for alleviating it (cf. Berg, 1981; Reutlinger and Selowsky, 1976; World Bank, 1980; USAID, 1977). Many of those options focus on actions taken in the agricultural sector or in other programs to increase individual incomes. Some involve investments in community infrastructure (water supply or electricity) or health systems. Others are direct interventions in nutrition: food price subsidization, supplementary feeding programs, and development of nutritionally-improved or fortified foods. On most lists of potential policy options (although sometimes well down on those lists) one can also find mention of nutrition education as a promising strategy for combatting malnutrition. The nutrition education option is the focus of this monograph. (1) The central questions here are straightforward: Under what circumstances is there a role for nutrition education? In what content/behavior areas, with what educational methods, and for which populations is there evidence that education is an affordable, logistically feasible and effective intervention? Is it possible that nutrition education can stand on its own or is it valuable exclusively as a component of a comprehensive nutrition intervention?
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