Nutrition And Population A Close Link

By Khilendra Basnyat

MANY people in the world do not take care of nutrition. However, lack of nutrition in human results in the loss of physical and mental energy and eventually death.

Alternative

Protein, which is made up from different combinations of amino acids drawn from 20 naturally occurring types, are used for structural building, the manufacture of enzymes and nucleic acids. If they are provided in excess, they are used as an alternative carbohydrate, the energy source.
Leaf protein represents the largest store of all food proteins in the world. The annual yield of protein per hectare from a leafy crop is larger than from other system so farming.

Calculating prices for the cost of either proteins or vitamin A, they are actually the cheapest products, demanding 10-30 per cent of the outlay for equivalent quantities of animal foodstuff. May be the quality of animal protein is somewhat better, but the difference in price is usually so high that leaf vegetables should be considered the cheap sources of proteins.

The loss of equilibrium between human population and its environment may be expressed in terms of deficiencies of all foods, sometimes called under-nutrition, starvation or famine. It is also expressed in terms of protein deficiency, generally called malnutrition and sub-nutrition and is indicated by the presence of various kinds of diseases.

Most forms of malnutrition are caused by a deficiency of one or more of the main component of the diet apart from carbohydrates, proteins, minerals, fats and vitamins that are common in most developing countries like ours.

However, even where all the ingredients of balanced diets are available at prices which the people can pay, there are still some prejudices and taboos which limit their use. For instance, it is common to regard animal proteins as undesirable during illness and for pregnant and lactating mothers even when these people woud accept animal food in the diet normally.

Likewise, the tradition of feeding the infants in a combination of some form of sugar and water (frequently not boiled) until fats are replaced by breast milk not only deprives the infants of a natural source of easily digestible protein but exposes them to infection.

As vitamin A deficiency is widespread so is vitamin D. The deficiency or the absence of the present amounts and types of proteins is, however, probably the most difficult to remedy. In reality, protein malnutrition occurs in both developed and developing countries to an extent, which is shown by impaired growth of mental as well as physical development. For example, if a group of babies or children responds to an improvement in the protein level of their nutrition in terms of growth rates and general health, then it can be assumed that this group has been suffering from a mild form of protein malnutrition.

Countries showing the characteristics of impaired growth and development in certain proportion of the population will have a larger proportion of population suffering from milder form of malnutrition. However, the population deficient in milder form of malnutrition could rapidly respond to an improvement in the amount and quality of protein intake.

Due to high population growth and low agricultural production in most countries food problem in the world will become severe in the years to come. Consequently, many people in the world will suffer from malnutrition deficiencies such as mental retardation due to iodine deficiency, physical growth retardation and impaired reproductive function due to iodine deficiency and childhood blindness due to vitamin A deficiency. Various other nutritional deficiencies caused by zine, selenium and other trace elements will affect a large number of people in the world. Apart from this, diet related communicable diseases and cancer would also occur in many countries. The world population stands at more than 6.1 billion at present and is likely to grow by 50 per cent by 2050. The population of the developing countries is expected to increase significantly in the years to come.

According to the United Nations Population Division, the world's least developed countries and the people living under the poverty line will increase dramatically. Consequently, the governments of these countries will have no alternative except to plunge into the mire of complex problem of absolute poverty. The poor population lives on agriculture. The increase in population in the least developed countries will further deepen nutrition problem.

Source

Unless the population growth rates of these countries can be reduced, respective governments will be preoccupied with serious food shortage and therefore with the provision of food grains as the main source of calories. Actually, for a balanced diet, the proteins of these food grains would require to be fortified with the manufactured amino acids, which they are deficient.

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