Food security and health security : explaining the levels of nutrition in Pakistan

Most influential studies of malnutrition and public policy have focused on energy availability and consumption, tending to equate hunger with malnutrition. But recent studies have explored how other factors - notably infection and levels of maternal education - affect nutrition. Alderman and Garcia's study of nutrition levels in Pakistan shows that raising household food consumption, for example, has less impact on nutritional levels than raising a mother's education does. They found that educating mothers to at least the primary level tends to reduce the level of child stunting 16.5 percent, or roughly 10 times the impact achieved by increasing per capita income 10 percent. (The impact of education is not immediately realized; the diffusion of knowledge about good hygiene and child care associated with learning has a cumulative effect.) Alderman and Garcia found that in Pakistan, food security alone is not enough to improve children's nutritional status. There may be welfare justifications for various food policies, but in rural Pakistan, especially, it is equally important to improve health and reduce infection.