Health, Nutrition and Physical Growth in Developing Nations

Developing Nations bear the greatest burden of infectious disease and have limitations on the food front as well. These two situations work synergistically to put a lot of stress on the physical growth of children living in the developings world thus impinging on their health, survival and habitual physical activity. Professor Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winner in Economics in 1998 dedicated his efforts to work on the welfare economics by correlating the health situation with economic indicators. In a real and functional sense, the size of the children, adolescents and adults is indicative of the fact how a nation performs on its economic and developmental front. Though nobody doubts the interaction between genetics and environment in determining the outcome of child growth, extricating the effects of these two is highly cumbersome. A large number of studies have indicated that the growth performance of children in the developing world is slower than their peer in the developed world. Indian scenario of child growth and development is alarming. Data compiled by WHO has shown that underweight children in India below the age of 5 years constitutes 43.5 per cent of all children during the year 2006. This is a huge number and an eye opener for every progressive Indian.This volume is the outcome of the papers dedicated to the Panel “BH 01: Health, Nutrition and Physical Growth in Developing Nations” of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) World Congress “Evolving humanity, emerging worlds” held at Manchester, UK, from 5th-10th August, 2013. Different papers in this edited volume throw light on the status of children throughout India and delve in detail about the conditions in which they are living and thriving. It is expected that this book will be of immense value to the scholars (viz. students of anthropology, biology, demography, economics, geography, sociology, medicine, public health, health management etc.) and planners equally. 

Premananda Bharati (b. 1951) is attached to Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata as a Professor and Head. His main research interests are in the field of Nutrition, Growth, Poverty, Demography, Public health.

S.P. Singh, Ph.D. (b. 1951) is Professor in the Department of Human Genetics, Punjabi University, Patiala. Having an academic experience of three decades, Dr Singh attained an expertise in anthropometric measurements and  in determining human health and child growth. He has 9 books to his credit besides 130 published research papers.

Jaspreet Kaur (b. 1971) M.Sc., M.Ed., PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Government College for Girls at Ludhiana in Home Science. Her research interests include physical growth and malnutrition among children. She has presented papers in national and international conferences and is a co-author of five text books of Home Science.

Dipak Kr. Adak (b. 1965) is attached to the Anthropological Survey of India, Kolkata as a Research Associate (physical). His main research interests are in the fields of anthropo demography, population genetics, public health, growth and nutrition.