Feeding Latin America's children : an analytical survey of food programs

Abstract

It is by now commonplace that malnutrition is unacceptably widespread in Latin American and the Caribbean, particularly among pre-school age children; that economic growth alone would be very slow to eliminate malnutrition; that other means are available to reduce malnutrition more rapidly and surely; that among these means are targeted food and nutrition programs designed to deliver some combination of food, nutrient supplements, health care and education to vulnerable children and their families; and that such programs need not cost an enormous share of a country's or a government's resources. The objectives of the study were to compile an inventory of the supplementary feeding programs for mothers and children being implemented in mid-1990 in the countries selected, and to gather as much detailed information as possible about the actual implementation of those programs with the highest coverage in each country. The scope of this study is clearly limited to one general type of nutrition intervention: provision of free or subsidized foods to population groups supposedly at risk of protein-calorie malnutrition. Within this broad category, several specific program types are distinguished. The specific purpose of these programs is to improve nutritional status or other functional outcomes by directly increasing family or individual food availability and consumption or by using food-linked income transfers likely to improve consumption.