Malnutrition breeds race of pygmies

Press, 23 November 1987, Page 37

Malnutrition breeds race of pygmies

NZPA-Reuter Recife, Brazil Chronic malnutrition in northeastern Brazil is producing a generation of stunted people, similar to the undersized pygmy tribes of Africa, scientists and doctors say. The findings were based on research by a pediatrician, Meraldo Zisman, who has studied what he terms "nutritional dwarfism” in more than 30,000 babies bom in the last 10 years in the north-east, one of the poorest parts of Brazil. His study, entitled “The Pygmy North-east — A Generation Under Threat,” used birth weight and size to determine that the local population was diminishing in stature markedly.

"To reverse this trend and normalise the race, we will have to adequately feed two generations of mothers,” said Zisman, professor of medical sciences at Pernambuco State University.

About 35 million of Brazil’s 140 million people are “Nordestinos,” or north-easterners. More than half of them barely subsist on the minimum monthly wage, equal to about SUSSO ($80), in a region that has been devastated by droughts. The high infant mortality rate — 150 deaths per 1000 births — is attributed to poor medical facilities, bad sanitation and education, compounded by grossly inadequate nutrition. A poor Nordestino in-

gests an average of 1845 calories a day, far below the 3000 recommended by the World Health Organisation. Doctors warned of the dangers of this diet some years ago. “The hunger in the north-east will result in the formation of a physically and intellectually deficient generation of retarded people,” said the late Nelson Chaves, founder of the Pernambuco University Nutrition Institute, in an effort to alert the government.

Mr Zisman has studied the phenomenon for more than 20 years. In the 19605, he explained, the “nutritional dwarfism” was restricted to a few rural areas but it has gradually advanced in line with population movements, to the urban peripheries, including Recife, the area’s most developed centre. Examining more than 30,000 babies born in Recife’s two maternity hospitals, Mr Zisman established that babies bom to undernourished mothers weighed, at an average of 3.16 kg, less than those of middle or upper class families at 3.22 kg. Birth weight is one of the most important indicators of future development used by the World Health Organisation. “By the 19905, the babies bom to these poor mothers will weigh a mere 2.9 kg — the same birth weight that is recorded in babies of the pygmy tribes of Africa,”

Mr Zisman predicted. The pygmy ethnic group found in equatorial Africa, Sumatra and parts of Melanesia reaches a maximum height of 1.4 metres. Mr Zisman said projections indicated Brazil’s pygmy generation would probably reach heights of 1.55 m to 1.60 m. A constant sub-standard diet greatly slows individual growth, passing from generation to generation, he explained.

The lack of essential vitamins, minerals and proteins leads to such conditions as blindness, or even death. Malnutrition in mothers leads to underdevelopment of breasts, meaning inadequate milk supply and a narrowing of the pelvis, restricting the cranial development of the foetus during the formation of its nervous system. Mr Zisman said that of the 21 million babies born in the world annually weighing less than 2.5 kg, 20 million were in underdeveloped regions similar to the Brazilian northeast.

“The children of economically underprivileged countries all over the world are gradually diminishing in weight,” he said.

Health facilities in Brazil are 20 years behind the times with more than half the population denied access to the most modem facilities because of the concentration of

wealth in the richer, southern states, Mr Zisman said.

A global fall in average birth weights is worrying the WHO, which has also seen the trend in segments of the population — for instance, teen-age mothers — of developed countries such as the United States. The ideal weight for a new-born baby should be around 3.5 kg, Mr Zisman said. Mr Zisman is trying to win Government support for an effective programme to stop the spread of chronic starvation that grips the northeast.

Food supplement programmes are “mere palliatives,” the pediatrician said, adding that malnutrition is a big factor behind premature death in the region where the average life expectancy is 55 years.

"The threat of this dwarfism is a serious one and the Brazilian authorities are not interested in discussing it adequately,” he said. Thousands of Nordestino youths are rejected annually for military service which is compulsory. The Military Command in the north-east has refused comment.

However, reliable sources said the height and weight of the youths was not deemed satisfactory for military service, indicating that the pygmy generation of Brazil’s! north-east may already have appeared.