Nutrition Flashcards
Learning Objectives
- To appreciate nutritional needs in humanitarian emergencies
- Understand the terms Food Security & Nutrition security
- To be able to assess nutritional status in populations at risk
- To recognise the relevance of malnutrition and related diseases
- Appreciate the challenges that humanitarian disasters pose outside “simple” supply of food.
Define Food Security
A situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Based on this definition, four security dimensions can be identified: food availability, economic and physical access to food, food utilisation and stability over time.
Define Food insecurity
A situation that exists when people lack secure access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food for normal growth, development and an active and healthy life. IT may be caused by the unavailability of food, insufficient purchasing power, inappropriate distribution or inadequate use of food at the household level. Food insecurity, poor conditions of health, sanitation, inappropriate care and feeding practices are the major causes of poor nutritional status. Food insecurity may be chronic, seasonal or transitory.
Describe Nutritional security
- A tributary of food security
- People need enough to eat and they need enough of the right kind of foods when they need them
- Nutrition needs are met for each individual according to their needs
- Nutrient needs vary throughout the life cycle
How does nutritional needs vary between individuals?
- Nutritional needs vary by age, gender and whether pregnant or breastfeeding
- Therefore nutritional security must be analysed either individually or at least by vulnerable groups
- Pregnant and breastfeeding women, infants 0-6 months & 6-23 months, adolescent girls, adolescent boys to a lesser extent and individuals with chronic illness
- Vulnerability is both socio-economic (less economic power) and…
List Countries at risk of extreme food insecurities
- Afghanistan
- Eritrea
- Somalia
- Ethiopia
- Burundi
- Chad
- South Sudan
- DR Congo
- Haiti
How does this fit into Humanitarian Emergencies?
- “A disaster is an occurrence disrupting the normal conditions of existence and causing a level of suffering that exceeds the capacity of adjustment of the affected community.”
-EXISTING PROBLEMS ARE AMPLIFIED - Mortality and morbidity…
- A third to half of deaths associated with malnutrition
- Increased rates of some diseases (measles)
- Increased susceptibility amongst some diseases (HIV)
Define Fragile states
“fundamental failure of the state to perform functions necessary to meet citizens’ basic needs and expectations. Fragile states are commonly described as incapable of assuring basic security, maintaining rule of law and justice, or providing basic services and economic opportunities for their citizens”
Define Protracted crisis
“Those environments in which a significant proportion of the population is acutely vulnerable to death, disease and disruption of livelihoods over a prolonged period of time. The governance of these environments is usually very weak, with the state having a limited capacity to respond to, and mitigate, the threats to the population, or provide adequate levels of protection.”
What is the snowball effect?
- The proportion of undernourished people is about three times as high in countries in protracted crisis as in other developing countries
- Protracted crisis are fundamentally different from the model of acute disease
Describe what is likely to happen by 2030
- “By 2030 nearly two thirds of the world’s poor will be living in states now deemed “fragile” (like Congo and Somalia).
- In Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, human failings mean a severe drought has tipped millions into famine. It’s a textbook case of why things go wrong. War begets poverty, leaving food unaffordable. Devastated infrastructure destroys both food production and the ability to truck in emergency food.
How does climate change play a role in food and nutritional security? (PART 1)
- Natural disasters more frequent and intense Extreme weather-related disasters are bound to become more frequent and have a disproportionate toll on poor, weak and elderly people.
- Water scarcer and harder to access: Changing rainfall patterns are likely to cause severe water shortages and/or flooding as well as accelerate land degradation.
- Melting of glaciers are likely to lead to flooding and soil erosion.
How does climate change play a role in food and nutritional security? (PART 2)
- Increases in productivity harder to achieve.
- Rising temperatures will cause shifts in crop growing seasons and to have a negative influence on yields and livestock numbers and productivity, which affect food security, and changes will place more people at risk from diseases.
- The effects of climate change are predicted to drive up prices of major food crops in many developing countries (UNDP 2007)
How will climate change affect everyone?
- Growing risk of humanitarian crisis – Climate change cuts into global food supply, so raises the risk of rising food prices, food insecurity, political instability and conflict.
- Climate change has already diminished the global food supply with declining global crop yields especially for wheat, raising new concern about whether production can keep up with population growth.
- Climate change will make it harder for developing countries to emerge from poverty and will create “poverty pockets” in rich and poor countries.
List the aims for food security
- Identify major food and nutrition problems:
– Assess populations/subpopulations particularly at risk
– Assess rates of undernutrition and malnutrition
– Assess risk factors for malnutrition in complex emergencies - To reduce mortality associated with malnutrition and to improve the nutrition status of the affected population and prevent their situation from deteriorating.
- Ensure food supplies are familiar and culturally appropriate to the affected population.
- Foster transition to affected populations developing self-sufficient food security.
