The epidemiology of good nutrition in a population with a high prevalence of malnutrition

Abstract

In an attempt to detect those factors which, even in very poor families, allow good child nutrition, a comparison was made of data obtained from the families of well‐nourished and of malnourished children standardized by socio‐economical level. Clear differences were found in some biological characteristics of the mother‐child pair; the well‐nourished children were more frequently males, they were older, their mothers had a better diet, and weaning was more gradual and involved a greater number of foods. There were also differences in family attitudes, showing that the families of the well‐nourished had less prejudices and a higher degree of modernization with respect to concepts and beliefs about food.