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TODAY Tuesday 30 December 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Tuesday 30 December 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Bad Eating and Not Eating
Thanks to Peter Montague and the good people at Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly (e-mailable through erf@rachel.clark.net), we've just been alerted to a study that demonstrates how badly American kids eat and how unrealistically the federal government thinks they should eat.
Rachel's carries a summary of a what-do-they-eat survey detailed in the September issue of Pediatrics. Here it is:
"Only one percent of American children between the ages of 2 and 19 eat a diet that includes proper amounts of all the food groups recommended by the federal government, according to a telephone survey of the diets of 3307 children conducted during 1989-1991. Even the diet of the top 1% exceeds federal recommendations for fat content.
"Federal guidelines say children should eat each day: 6 to 11 servings of grain; 3 to 5 servings of vegetables; 2 to 4 servings of fruit; 2 to 3 servings of dairy products; and 5 to 7 ounces of meat.
"Sixteen percent of children eat diets that do not meet any of the federal guidelines. Only 30% of children meet federal recommendations for fruit, grains, meat, and dairy; 36% meet the recommendations for vegetables.
"Federal guidelines say no more than 10% of a child's calories should come from fat and sugar. According to the survey, the average American child receives 40% of calories from fat and sugar.
"White children came closer than did African-American or Hispanic children."
So let's see. Only one percent of the nation's youngsters eat enough of the basic food groups and even they consume way too much fat and sugar. Maybe there's a pocket of a dozen or so eligible Aryan kids out in Mission Viejo training for the Junior Olympic swim team. What gives here? Are we a nation of jelly doughnuts, ingesting a diet that will dramatically and unnecessarily increase the incidence of cancer and cardiovascular disease? Or are the federal guidelines ridiculous abstractions written to placate professional nutritionists? Probably both.
Meanwhile, the Population Information Program at Johns Hopkins has just released an excellent report called "Winning the Food Race." The report assesses current trends in population growth, food productivity, and resource depletion and asks key questions about their interrelationships. Taken as an abstract aggregate, the planet could probably feed its human population so long as birth rates continued to decline. But people don't live in the aggregate, and there are places in the world today where nutrition is bad and getting worse for a depressingly high percentage of children. Each year 18 million people, most of them children, die from starvation and malnutrition. In most of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, more than one-third of the children are described as "stunted" by the World Health Organization. Forty million African children are projected to be "malnourished" in 2020.
As the cash economy expands both within countries and across the planet, the nutrition of children will increasingly depend on imports. The Food and Agriculture Organization has established a new yardstick to reflect the fact. A "Food Deficit Country," according to FAO, is one with a per capita GDP of $1,345 or less and a net deficit in grain trade over the preceding five years. There are 82 such countries -- 82! -- and their ability to feed their populations will constitute perhaps the greatest ecological and social challenge of the new millennium.
Meanwhile, cut down on the french fries for Junior and Sis.
TODAY ON THE SITE
One of the best places to unravel the Gordian knot of population policy is right here at Lib Tree. Dianne Sherman does an excellent job of presenting the data and marshaling the arguments (oft heated) of this most fundamental of issues. Check out her work at our In The Trenches section.
Recent "Today" columns:
12/29: Owning the Public Health Issue
12/23: Good Year for Vintage Climate
12/22: Save the Reefs
12/19: Mousemobile
12/18: Year of Fire
12/17: Ramblin' Man (Ramblin' Woman)
12/16: Big News on the Margins
12/15: The Hybrid As Savior
12/12: Good Week for the Dragon
12/11: Help Wanted: Unreasonable Extremists
12/10: Oh Boy! A Fight!
12/9: Running Away From It All
12/8: "What I Wouldn't Give for This War to End."
12/5: Feisty Euros at Kyoto
12/4: Beauty in the Bronx
12/3: God from Machine
12/2: Gentlemen's Bet
12/1: Public Opinion
11/26: Sperm
11/25: Sound Sound-Bite Science
11/24: Home Sweet Storage Locker
11/21: Tim Wirth's Inscrutable Adventure
11/20: Better to Receive than to Give
11/19: Wes Jackson's Problem with Agriculture
11/18: "Stay Home and Be Decent"
To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.