Abstract
Stunting is defined by the public health community as a length- or height-for-age <-2 SD of a growth standard or reference and is claimed to be caused by poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation. Stunting is common at all income levels in middle- and low-income countries. At the higher income levels, stunting is unlikely to be caused by nutrient deficiency or infectious disease. In Guatemala, 17% of <5-year-olds in the highest family income quintile are stunted. Guatemala has a history of violence from armed conflict, current-day social and economic inequalities, government corruption, and threat of kidnapping for the wealthiest families. The high level of persistent violence creates an ecology of fear, an extreme range of inequalities in Social-Economic-Political-Emotional resources, and biosocial stress that inhibits skeletal growth and causes stunting for people of all income levels.
Highlights
It was acknowledged by the World Health Organization (WHO) that, “Stunting is the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation”
The WHO proposed that their Growth Standard should be used in place of national or international growth references, which show the way people do grow
The pollutants of inequality and social disadvantage disempower people from the SEPE resources needed for their own healthy growth and development and for the health and good growth of their children
Summary
This purely anthropometric definition of nutritional status was discussed in detail in a World Health Organization (WHO) 1971 report (FAO/WHO, 1971) and was broadly accepted after publication of the proceedings of a Nestlé Nutrition Workshop (Waterlow, 1988) With these publications and with the support of the WHO, private industry (e.g., Nestlé S.A.), and prestigious medical journals (Black et al, 2008 and related articles in Lancet), the basic strategy of associating nutrition and height became entrenched in the literature, in teaching, and in the practice of public health nutrition. It was acknowledged by the WHO that, “Stunting is the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation” (https:// www.who.int/news/item/19-11-2015-stunting-in-anutshell). Stunting is defined by the public health community as a lengthor height-for-age
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