Poverty and Food: Why do so many people in poor countries eat so badly--and what can be done about it?

The Economist:

IN ELDORADO, one of São Paulo's poorest and most misleadingly named favelas, some eight-year-old boys are playing football on a patch of ground once better known for drug gangs and hunger. Although they look the picture of health, they are not. After the match they gather around a sack of bananas beside the pitch.

"At school, the kids get a full meal every day," explains Jonathan Hannay, the secretary-general of Children at Risk Foundation, a local charity. "But in the holidays they come to us without breakfast or lunch so we give them bananas. They are filling, cheap, and they stimulate the brain." Malnutrition used to be pervasive and invisible in Eldorado. Now there is less of it and, equally important, it is no longer hidden. "It has become more visible--so people are doing something about it."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 28, 2012 4:21 AM
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