Twin dangers: malnutrition and obesity
Even as developing countries continue to struggle with the old scourge of malnutrition, the West’s obesity epidemic is spreading into such nations, creating twin nutritional problems that demand attention from already strapped health care systems. Experts from around the world convened at Harvard Medical School Tuesday (April 26) for a scientific symposium on “The Double Burden of Over and Under-Nutrition,” sponsored by the Harvard Global Health Institute. Harvard Global Health Institute Director Sue Goldie, the Roger Irving Lee Professor of Public Health, said nutrition sits amid three major problems of global health: the unfinished agenda of reducing malnutrition and infectious disease, the growth of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes (many of which have a dietary component) in developing nations, and globalization issues, where not only information and manufactured goods are exchanged, but also dietary habits and fast foods. “For each of those categories, nutrition is squarely in the middle, and unfortunately...