N.Z.-born dietitian’s quest to aid health
Miss Margaret Cameron’s job sounds like a Third World version of the “Galloping Gourmet.” Tasting the diets of developing countries is routine for the New Zealand-born dietitian, whose expertise has taken her from nutritional advisory projects in Malawai to the Republic of Maldives. Miss Cameron was in Christchurch yesterday to decide whether to return to New Zealand after retiring as principal lecturer in nutrition at North London Polytechnic. “I love trying the foods of the country but not when raw or I can not peel them myself,” she said. Miss Cameron drew the line at barbecued bush rat in one African village. The meal was unidentifiable in the darkness, but fortunately she had not been hungry. Miss Cameron became involved in international nutrition while also working at the London School of Tropical Medicine. During the last 24 years in Britain, she has been asked to undertake a number of projects for the World Health Organisation and other agencies. They ranged from teaching practical nutrition assessment in Nigeria, to a hectic eight weeks spent writing a handbook for primary health workers in the Maldives. (“Tuna fish and rice twice daily for eight weeks can get a bit much.”) Her particular interest
has been the health of Third World infants and their mothers. “I have seen the disastrous effects of infant for-
mula feeds wrongly used in developing countries where mothers can not afford enough of the feed and have not the water supplies or the facilities to make it up,” she said. “It is a political hot potato at the moment.” W.H.O. had published guidelines for the use of formulas in the Third World but “money talks and it is very hard.” If food supplements were handed out, education should go with them. “Too often they are given foods that are too foreign, so that they have to go to waste,” Miss Cameron said. Another way was to encourage Third World countries to make more and better use of local food supplies.
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Press, 19 April 1984, Page 9
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337N.Z.-born dietitian’s quest to aid health Press, 19 April 1984, Page 9
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