UN nutrition targets are not being met, raising doubts that the Sustainable Development Goal of ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 will be achieved. Recent global nutrition data indicates that many lower- and middle-income countries, including the Latin American nations where we and our colleagues work, suffer from a ‘double burden’.
This double burden means that there are high rates of obesity and diabetes, alongside widespread micronutrient deficiencies such as anaemia and undernutrition. Most troubling is that these complex and overlapping forms of malnutrition exist despite a long history of nutrition interventions in the region. It is clear that a new way of ‘doing nutrition’ is needed.
How is “nutrition” understood, and when did it appear as an idea – whether in rural areas of San Martin, El Salvador, in community associations on the outskirts of Medellin, Colombia, or in indigenous villages in the Peruvian Andes? How are the institutional memories of interventions (the histories of policy actors and service providers) different from the memories of those targeted? What can the combination of these narratives bring us, to build better programmes in the future? These are some of the questions our network Remembering and acting on ‘Malnutrition’: A Latin American Network to Foster Deep Learning on Nutrition Interventions Past and Present seeks to answer.
A multi-disciplinary network
Our cross-disciplinary network includes colleagues from Universidad Peruano Cayetano Heredia and Universidad San Cristobal de Huamanga in Peru, Universidad de Antioquia in Colombia, and health policy and agroecology experts in Central America. It unites historians, anthropologists, nutritionists and public health specialists with a shared interest in looking behind current-day nutrition programmes to promote systematic learning that draws on historical, political and cultural interpretations of nutrition interventions. Along with our partners, we aim to expand our network to reach new allies in each country, develop a novel methodological approach that involves historical work at local level, Building on these outcomes we will also help translate learning from social science, humanities and community engagement into programme implementation for actors across the network.
Surfacing alternative histories
We are experimenting, combining historical literature review, ethnographic methods, and oral histories, to culminate in participatory “witness seminars” where the recollections of decision-makers meet narratives from the field. As our partners begin to engage with communities, expand their networks, and delve into historical archives and local literature, we are struck how “nutrition” has meant many different things to many different people, and how it has been packaged up to meet different agendas.
Partners are finding that in some contexts, historical land disputes mean that nutrition is associated with issues such as community organisation around spaces for food production and strengthening of local political leadership. In other contexts, villagers surmise that “malnutrition” arrived with the introduction of agrochemicals, and deepened with access to processed foods unknown in earlier generations. Other families link “nutrition” to evolving layers of state vigilance of mothers and babies, with the introduction of public health programmes focused on measuring infants. This means that for some, “malnutrition” has become a source of shame, inciting mothers’ anger when their babies are labelled as such.
Common themes
At a more macro-level, working together, we are drawing out common themes across the region, looking at who has influenced the nutrition agenda, from regional to local, and to what end. Partners are finding that this may not just be about international organisations and governments, but also the private sector, foundations, the church, philanthropists, and local politicians, amongst others. This mapping of actors over time will serve as a back-drop to the community-level stories of the way malnutrition has been acted upon on the ground.
Malnutrition is a multisectoral challenge that needs to be understood within its broader political context, in relation to shifting local and global agendas, and how the interaction of these play out over time. To improve nutrition outcomes, we must first address systemic inequities in food and health. Our novel interdisciplinary work on alternative histories of nutrition aims to shed light on what we can unearth about the past to be more astute about action in the present.
This opinion blog is also available in Spanish: Aprender del pasado para mejorar la nutrición en América Latina
Bronwen Gillespie is working with IDS and partners on the network Remembering and acting on ‘Malnutrition’: A Latin American Network to Foster Deep Learning on Nutrition Interventions Past and Present