Latin American hunger: no immediate solution?
Bu NORMA C. ROMANO
(Editor's note: Miss Romano, author of the following article, is from Bolivia. She is a senior in journalism at KU.)
New babies usually bring to a home hope and happiness ahead. But, in a rueful number of Latin American families, hope fades away all too soon—the shadow of hunger takes its place.
That despised "hidden hunger," whose easiest victims are children and whose confederates are poverty, illiteracy and out-of-control birth rates, is rampant in large parts of Central and South America. A defense as common as a balanced diet could put an end to the problem, but still its menace grows.
In the lands south of the Rio Grande, there are far too many small coffins carried to cemeteries, too many little bodies distorted, too many baby smiles that fade into irritable frowns and too many sparkling eyes that dull with disinterest.
WHY HAVE AMERICANS, renowned as hunger-fighters throughout the world, tolerated this mass misery in their own back yard? Their earnings go generously to governmental agencies, the United Nations, universities, churches and other organizations which attack hunger in underdeveloped areas.
No matter how urgently Latin America's hunger problem is combated, it will, according to economists, intensify before it abates. The more deeply Americans probe the issue looking for remedies, the more confounding it becomes.
IN DISAGREEMENT with many statisticians, it is not Asia which has the highest rate of population growth. Latin America has had the highest rate every decade since 1920. Between 1920 and 1960, while the population of the United States and Canada increased 72 per cent and South Asia 85 per cent, Latin American population climbed up 136 per cent! By the year 2000 its present population, if unchecked, will triple and in some areas it will quadruple while the world as a whole only doubles.
Girls and boys of Latin America, in rapidly swelling numbers, are helplessly being drawn into one of the worst starvation traps ever known. Their situation would be less desperate if it were more believable. Unfortunately this picture has long been distorted. New findings are bringing the situation into focus.
CHILDREN IN Latin America are produced faster than the food to feed them. In that part of the world, the population growth is the fastest in the world, and the agricultural production per capita has been decreasing.
"The food shortage may seem unrealistic in view of the large grain and meat exports from South America," Gwen M. Schultz of the American Medical Association said recently. "But these come from the pampas of Argentina and Uruguay, a region much like the North American corn belt, only smaller in area."
In all Latin America, Argentina and Uruguay compose the only first-class agricultural region of any important size, and these are the only two countries that have a relatively ample food supply.
CHILDREN COMPOSE the largest age group in Latin America. A large number of them will start having families before they can operate a farm or earn money to support them properly. In Brazil, for example, 42 per cent of the population is under 15 years of age.
Large families are common. Two cases of families in Bolivia will serve to illustrate this fact. One couple has lived together 17 years and has had 16 children. The other pair have 25 children, all living.
The Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) recently investigated the deaths of children aged one to four in several Guatemalan villages. According to the civil registers, only one of the 109 deaths in a given period was caused by malnutrition; INCAP reexamined the cases and found that not one but 40 were due to malnutrition.
"MARASMUS" AND "kwashiorkor" may sound Japanese, but they are the two most destructive childhood diseases in underdeveloped tropical and subtropical lands. Their common
factor is a shortage in protein. Marasmus afflicts children under one years of age; kwashiorkor affects those somewhat older.
The two diseases often merge with one another. The infant with marasmus has a wasted, skin-and-bones look. Eating little but watery guels, he is literally starving. If he survives, he will, in time, be fed more calories but still not enough protein. Then, usually following an infectious disease, kwashiorkor will be superimposed up the marasmus condition.
Kwashiorkor is an African word which means "disease the first child gets when the second is expected." The kwashiorkor child looks swollen rather than emaciated, as the marasmus child does. His enlarged abdomen, his puffy legs and face are sometimes mistaken for plump features of a healthy child.
BUT WITH THE poor diet that the child has, he inevitably becomes ill. Sanitary conditions are deplorable. About 40 per cent of the urban dwellers and about 70 per cent of the small-city dwellers of Latin America are without water service.
Dr. Abraham Horwitz, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), says that kwashiorkor is "the greatest single threat to Latin American children aged one to four." Severe kwashiorkor is fatal.
THE UNITED STATES has been accused of indifference towards Latin America's nutritional crisis. It needs be said, however, that this country has not neglected the needs of its southern neighbors.
Many Latin American governments have, since 1956, enjoyed the offer of the United States Interdepartmental Committee on Nutrition for National Development to collaborate in assessing the nutritional state of their countries.
The white hospital ship HOPE (Health Opportunity for People Everywhere) has docked at Peru and Ecuador during her worldwide voyages. Her staffs on ship and on shore conduct health education programs. Her milk plant, said to equal 2500 cows, reconstitutes dry milk.
ALTHOUGH MANY devoted hands and minds are at work, their effect in this vast land is a light sprinkle of raindrops, vitalizing spots here and there, when what is needed really is a saturating flood.
About 45 per cent of Latin America is illiterate. School enrollment is far below what it should be. Needless to say, Latin America is hungry, but it is starving for education. Its people need to be educated to cooperate with the help it has been receiving.
To conduct a health program in a hungry, uneducated land without increasing food supplies proportionately is to invite disaster. Each saved life is an added drain on the available food.
DEATH RATES fall fast. Birth rates remain frighteningly high in a fertile youthful population. No wonder there is panic at the prospect. The United States has said more than once that all Latin American countries "will find a way to feed themselves properly." But what in the meantime?
One of the solutions would be for food-surplus nations to send enough food to make up the deficit during the emergency years of shortage. But, even if this were possible, any food they give or sell at low prices depresses the price of locally produced food and hurts the home farmer, who cannot stand being hurt and whose contribution to the economy is essential. Furthermore, the type of food which can be spared and which ships well is mainly the starchy kind that is already too abundant in the diets.
LAND REFORM, which will give more land to the small farmer, progresses slowly, and while it takes place, agricultural production will be disrupted as new patterns and techniques are put into operation.
Change will, no doubt, take time. Meanwhile malnutrition kills, cripples, stunts, weakens and mentally numbs one generation after another.
Daily Kansan
2
Wednesday, January 11, 1967
THE KANSAS STATE COLLEGIAN reports that a $52 million building surge at K-State since 1950 has been sufficient to bring the school's buildings up to enrollment requirements of 1947. The problem lies in the fact that no major buildings were constructed at K-State from 1927 to 1947; the university has not been able to catch up and meet building needs since then.
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN of the University of Nebraska reports that the university's director of counseling says that there are similarities between fundamentalist Christians who have just been "saved" and users of LSD on a "trip." Dr. Henry Cannon added that a person in good psychological health might find LSD to be an exciting and rewarding experience, if taken under the proper conditions.
The More the Merrier Dept.: THE DAILY REVEILLE of Louisiana State University reports that 11 students were placed on probation during the period of one week. Three of the students had been arrested for possession of narcotics; three more had been arrested for blocking railroad tracks with bricks, crossties and cables; and the remaining five were charged with the theft of $5 worth of newspapers in U.S. mailbags from a truck. Yea team, v'all.
THE KENTUCKY KERNAL of the University of Kentucky reports that their super-active police department has towed 230 cars from the campus since the beginning of the semester.
THE IOWA STATE DAILY reports that a "Playmate Dance" was recently held at ISU, at which a real, live Playmate of the Month was the featured attraction. Prior to the dance, it was announced that people should dress in "church clothes." Asked the Daily, "Pray tell, which church?"
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
TODAY
Psychology Colloquium, 4 p.m.
Kansas Union, KU. Forum Room,
Kansas Union.
Last SUA Lecture, 4:30 p.m. Dr.
Nellick, "The Last Lecture."
Classical Film, 7 & 9 p.m. "The White Sheikh." Italy, Dyche Aud.
Swimming Meet, 7:30 p.m. Southern Methodist U. New Robinson Gym. Viet Nam Debate, 7:30 p.m. Forum Room, Kansas Union, Sponsored by KU-Y and Viet Nam Council. Y and Viet Nam Council to follow. Faculty: Residency, 8 p.m. Howard
Faculty Recital. 8 p.m. Howard
Boyajian, violinist. Swarthout Recital Hall, Murphy. Hall.
TOMORROW
Muslim Society, 8 a.m. Id-al-Falr prayers. Big Eight Rm, Kansas Union. Speech I Exemption Oral Exam, 3:30 p.m. Lindley, Append. 5.
Mathematics Club. 7:15 p.m. Prof.
Mathematics Club. The Tertary Rainbow"
"119 Strong."
Kappa Phl. Methodist Women's Club, 7:30 p.m.丹福北 Chapel
University Lecture, 8 p.m. Carlos Gorostiza, contemporary Argentine dramatist, will discuss Argentine theatre, Jiahawk Room, Kansas Union.
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Executive SHEI
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Narrator                      Neil Rittman
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