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As we enter the new year and Americans fret about rates of taxes, unemployment, and obesity, it is important to be reminded of the challenges facing children and families in other parts of the world. Yahoo! News (December 15, 2012) reported on the impact lack of food is having on children in Chad... "where malnutrition has become chronic, [and] children have simply stopped growing. In [Chad], 51.9 percent of children are stunted, one of the highest rates in the world, according to a survey published by UNICEF...
"The struggle that is on display every day... reveals not only the staggering price these children are paying, but also the price it has exacted from Africa. Up to two in five kids across the continent are stunted, researchers estimate, which means that they fall short physically and, even more devastating, mentally. It's a slowdown that creeps across a community, cutting down the human capital, leaving behind a generation of people unable to attain their potential....
"Stunting is the result of having either too few calories, or too little variety in the types of calories consumed, or both.... When a child doesn't receive enough calories, the body prioritizes the needs of vital organs over growth. What this does to the brain is dramatic. A 2007 medical study in Spain compared the CAT scan of a normal 3-year-old child and that of a severely malnourished one. The circumference of the healthy brain is almost twice as large....
"Under the microscope, the permanent damage done to the brain is unmistakable. In an often-cited survey done in Chile, researchers compared brain cells from healthy and malnourished babies. A brain cell from a healthy child looks like a tree in bloom. The one from a stunted infant looks like a tree in winter.
"The branches are the synapses, which connect one brain cell to another. Simply put, the brain cells of a malnourished child are less able to communicate with each other. Researchers have found that height in childhood is directly related to success in adulthood, with a 1 percent loss in height due to stunting leading to a 1.4 percent loss in productivity, according to the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition."
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