The Geography of Food and Health Flashcards
What is chronic hunger?
Long-term hunger caused by a lack of food over a long timescale
What is periodic hunger?
Temporary hunger caused by a short-term decline in food intake
What is malnutrition?
Having a diet lacking proper nutrition from not having enough to eat or not having enough good-quality food
What is epidemiology?
The study of diseases
What is an endemic?
(Of a disease) prevalent in an area
What is an epidemic?
A fast-spreading outbreak of a disease
What is a pandemic?
A global epidemic
What is HALE?
Health adjusted life expectancy (accounts for years lived in ill-health) that’s age / sex specific
Burden of ill health bigger for: women, early old age, lower socio-economic status
Biggest burden from pain and sensory problems
Calculated for countries by WHO using death registration data
What is food security?
For a population: all people at all times have access to meet needs / preferences for a healthy life
For a household: all members at all times have access to live a healthy life
Includes:
Ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food
Assured ability to get foods in socially-acceptable ways
What components of food security comprise the Global Food Security Index?
Affordability: agriculture import tariffs, farm financing, food consumption in household expenditure
Availability: political stability risk, sufficiency of supply, agricultural infrastructure
Quality and safety: diet diversification, protein quality
What is the Global Hunger Index?
0 - no hunger
100 - worst hunger
Components
Undernourishment: percent of population that’s undernourished
Child wasting: percent of children < 5 who are wasting (low weight for height or age, acute under)
Child stunting: percent of children < 5 who are stunting (low height for age, chronic under)
Child mortality: mortality rate of children < 5
What is calorie intake?
Amount of food a person consumes each day, varies by many factors
High-income country average > low-income country average
What are indicators of malnutrition?
Deficiency diseases from lack of specific vitamins or minerals
Kwashiorkor is lack of protein
Marasmus is lack of calories
Obesity from too much food
Starvation is limited or no food
Temporary hunger from short-term availability decline in population
Famine is long-term decline in availability
What is the relationship between food intake and income?
Low-income: more carbohydrates, consistently growing food consumption per capita, diversifying diets
High-income: carbohydrates and fats, more meat and dairy, less staple foods
Generally more food and protein with more income
What is the child mortality rate?
Probability child will die before 5 per 1000 births
(# deaths < 5 / # children < 5) * 1000
What is the infant mortality rate?
Number of deaths in children under 1 per 1000 live births
(# deaths < 1 / # live births < 1) * 1000
What is the maternal mortality rate?
Annual number of female deaths per 100,000 live births from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management
Describe access to sanitation
68% of world has access to an improved sanitation facility
Higher in urban areas than rural ones
Describe access to health services
Number of people per doctor or hospital (does not account for facility quality)
What is the epidemiological transition?
Epidemics: infectious or communicable diseases
Degenerative: non-communicable diseases that gradually worsen health
As countries develop they shift from more epidemics to more degenerative
How does aging effect the global disease burden?
23% of global disease burden is diseases in 60+ (higher for high-income countries)
High income: increased life expectancy, decreased fertility, population aging
Similar for middle-income
Heart disease more common after transition
What is arable farming?
Cultivation of crops
What is pastoral farming?
Rearing animals
What is commercial farming?
Products sold to make a profit
What is subsistence farming?
Products consumed by the cultivators
What is intensive farming?
High inputs or yields per unit area
What is extensive farming?
Low inputs or fields per unit area
What is nomadic farming?
Farmers moving seasonally with their herds
What is sedentary farming?
Farmers remaining in the same place all year
What are some physical and human factors effecting farming?
Physical:
Climate (precipitation, temp)
Soil (fertility, depth)
Pests
Slope
Human:
Political (land ownership, organization)
Economic (farm size, technology)
Social (culture, education)
How can agricultural systems be analyzed?
Consider them modified ecosystems
Show inputs, processes, outputs
Can compare with productivity, biomass, energy efficiency
What is the energy efficiency ratio (EER)?
Measures amount of energy input compared to output
Agro-forestry / hunter-gathering is higher than intensive pastoral farming
Seen in nutrient-cycling diagrams and energy flows
What is a water footprint?
Measure of how much water is used in human activities
What is the food availability deficit (FAD) and food entitlement deficit (FED)?
FAD: food shortages from lack of food, less accepted
FED: food shortages from lack of access
Type of food consumed depends on price, health, taste; income / education influences choice
Describe case study: food consumption in Cape Town, South Africa
End of apartheid → more black Africans in urban areas → western diet → obesity / diabetes
Perception of food varies by gender and age; income effects food quality
Describe case study: food consumption in the Middle East
Subsidies negatively effected consumption
Change after increased oil revenue
Religion / preferences / discrimination
Mass media and migration
How / where does obesity effect children?
Weight and calorie intake has increased
Obesity levels higher in low-income families → financial health burden
More food → more expensive → big industry
Poor nutrition also causes stunting
What is disease diffusion?
Spread of a disease from the original source
Frictional effect of distance / distance decay: closer places more and sooner effected
Infectious disease is an S curve (time vs cumulative percentage of adopters)
What is expansion diffusion?
Expanding disease has a source and diffuses geographically outwards
What is relocation diffusion?
Spreading disease moves, leaving origin / source
What is contagious diffusion?
Spreading disease through direct contact with infected individual
What is hierarchical diffusion?
Spread through sequence of classes / places (city → large urban area → small urban area)
What is network diversion?
Disease spreads via transportation and social networks
Describe the Zika virus
Misquito-borne + sexual contact → relocation diffusion from travel in South America mostly
Causes birth defects and neurological problems
Describe malaria
Life-threatening, parasite transmitted by mosquito; high global risk
Mosquito prefers humid tropics → agricultural areas and refugee camps from natural disasters or war
Very expensive (global and individual) → prevention is cheaper
Some people more at risk
Prevention via vector control: insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying
Insecticide and drug resistance is problematic
Describe cholera
Waterborne disease via water, food, poop
Usually not severe
To occur must: breaches of water sanitation, present cholera
High-risk for < 5, overcrowded camps of displaced people
Why is global food security difficult?
Significant portion is malnourished
Global population grows
Climate change threaten production
Food system itself contributes to climate change / env harm
What is the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)?
Aims: eradicate hunger, food insecurity, malnutrition; eliminate poverty; sustainable use of natural resources; increase peoples’ resiliences to threats and crises
What is the World Food Programme (WFP)?
End global hunger via good assistance to poor and most vulnerable
Objectives: save lives / livelihoods in emergencies; support food security and (re)build livelihoods after emergencies; reduce risk and promote self-sufficiency; reduce undernutrition and break generational hunger
What is the impact of government food subsidies on the food system?
Subsidized agriculture in high-income countries drives down global prices → maintain poverty in low-income countries
Developing countries have created their own subsidies now
Subsidies → overuse fertilizer / pesticide
What is the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)?
1962: 1 market in EU, preferences to EU-grown products, financed by members
System of guaranteed prices → self sufficient in many sector
Led to intensification (increased inputs and outputs), concentration (specific product production confined to particular areas), specialization (specialize in concentration)
Reformed in 1992 because of surpluses
What are non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in food?
Deliver food to those with insufficient access
Mostly low- and middle-income countries
What is the UN‘s World Health Organization (WHO)?
Objectives:
Provide leadership on critical health matters and engage in partnership
Shape research and cycle of knowledge
Set standards and monitor implementation
Ethical and evidence-based policy
Building sustainable institution
Assess and monitor health trends
Many initiatives (tuberculosis, malaria, etc)
How is health care in low- and high-income countries different?
High-income: technology, curative, private
Low-income: low-tech, preventative primary care
Those who can access don’t need it and vis-versa
What is MSF (Doctors Without Borders)?
Founded in 1971 to provide emergency medical aid
Over 70 countries with mostly local medical experts and other professionals
90% funded by private donors, otherwise corporate
Provides assistance in Sudan, Europe vaccination programs, malaria, etc
What is glocalization?
Adapting a global product to a local market
How do TNCs effect traditional food consumption?
TNC “big food” is ultra-processed, unhealthy, and displacing traditional food systems
Main interest is to make money
Market penetration plateaued in high-income countries → “health’’ convenience food
Increasing market shares in LICs
What is a global value chain (GVC)?
Analyzes role of “lead firms” in global industries, interaction with local companies
Countries are at different levels of connection to the world economy, linked in food production
What are two examples of glocalization?
McDonald’s: 2000 introed regional dishes, salads, 2006 added nutritional info
PepsiCo: Sabritas in Mexico with chili flavor, duck flavor in China
Describe case study: changing diet patterns in Brazil
Traditional: varied diet (rice, beans, spices), home-cooked meals
Lifestyle change (urbanization) → more convenience food
Generally now is worse because of TNCs, more snack food
What is the role of women in food production in low-income countries?
Men grow field crops
Women grow, prepare, cook food and rear livestock
Women ~half of food-production workforce in SE Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, often unpaid
How does sexism / discrimination effect food security?
Women are 60% of world’s hungry
Discrimination in education / employment and in households
Less access to land, training, tech, finances, etc
Tend to be responsible for food / children: equality → ending malnutrition
Child’s chance of survival increases 20% if mother controls budget
What are seven positive effects of closing the agricultural gender gap?
If women had the same resource access, yields increase 20-30%
Women’s education access effects family levels of nutrition
Training women in hygiene and sanitation immediately improves household health
Lack of land access → only subsistence farming
Diseases → greater caretaking role → less time and energy for food
Lack of financial services → limited food security and innovation
Often denied selling produce to engage in cash economy
What is the “double burden”?
Women join workforce and act as caretakers at home
General household, children, other dependents
Impact of growth of elderly population is disproportionate to women
“Sandwhich generation” cares for their children and parents
US: women live longer, but less access to funds / pensions
Reduce work hours, pass-up promotions, etc to care for others
What eight factors effect the severity of a famine?
Length / severity of drought
Governance
Media: attention to hazards, fundraising
International aid
Population growth: especially from refugees
Unemployment and entitlement to food
Civil unrest
Access to land and production
Describe case study: famine in Ethiopia
Lots of famines, recently 2015-2016 when seasonal rains didn’t tell
> 18 million needed aid
Early-warning system → govt made social-security net, diverted money for aid
90% reduction in yields; famine caused by industrial farming “land grabs”
International donors distracted by Syria, still there are orgs helping
What are four short-term measures for food insecurity?
Increase production, reduce set-aside: high market prices → more production
Food aid
Seeds and fertilizer: plant for next season given high prices
Export bans from countries with shortages
What are two medium-term measures for food insecurity?
Free trade: reduce US subsidies and EU protectionism helps poor in the future; directly would increase prices in developing world
Biofuels: food crisis causes backlash against plant-based fuels, still made though
What are three long-term measures for food insecurity?
Agricultural investment: African yields could increase fourfold with help
GM crops
Sustainability: rethink western lifestyles and expectations
Describe case study: addressing food insecurity in Bangladesh
Food insecurity effected by international trade, land scarcity, need to increase nutritional food, natural hazards, climate change
Improved food security by increasing rice production with irrigation and high-yield varieties
Investments in rice storage, cold-storage, transport
Nationally it’s gotten better but many people are still insecure
How does food get wasted?
HICs: 1/3 thrown away, mostly from consumers
LICs: 80% wasted before market, mostly at farming-producing end
Efficient practices and storage → food reaches customers
Supermarkets reject edible food bc of marketing standards
More waste of fruits and veggies than grains
Annual loss of 180 million tons
What is genetically modified food?
Adding traits to a plant to make it more nutritious or resistant to disease / pesticide
> 90% of US corn, soy, cotton is GMO
Herbicide tolerance doesn’t increase yield or profit, weeds are easy
Growth is slowing, one reason is saturation
What is vertical farming?
Grow year-round in high-rise buildings
Reduces transportation, any weather, no herb- or insecticide
Japan is leading bc Fukushima
Conserve water, soil-free, LEDs like sun
Uses natural light, but lots of electricity
What is in-vitro meat?
Cultured meat or synthetic meat
Never been part of a living animal, grown in a lab, can add nutrients
Extremely expensive
Significantly fewer environmental impacts than normal beef
Less land, fewer GHGs
What is preventative versus curative treatment?
Preventative: cheaper, policy / lifestyle reducing risk of disease
Curative: expensive, treat diseases
How are pandemics managed?
Most have coordinated effort across global communities
Describe case study: the diabetes pandemic
Chronic, lifelong condition effecting all ages, races; causes other major issues
Hormone insulin doesn’t control blood-sugar levels like it should
Some low-expenditure solutions (blood sugar / pressure control) in LICs
More sophisticated care in HICs with lifestyle management
Type II risk factors: obesity, physical inactivity, diet, increased affluence
Large economic burden from direct medical costs, indirect costs (morbidity, productivity), intangible costs (reduced quality of life)
