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Nutrition
Nutritionists often work in mountain areas because food insecurity and malnutrition are recognized there as significant problems. When they try to understand the causes of malnutrition of mountain communities in the Andes or in the Himalaya, how people cope and what could be done to assist them, the same issues recur.
On the occasion of the International Year of Mountains (2002), the Food and Nutrition Division of FAO commissioned a literature review, ‘Household Food Security and Nutrition in Mountain Areas — an often forgotten story’, to explore the nutrition situation of mountain people.
This exercise confirmed the relative lack of literature addressing the issue. While there has been extensive discussion of agricultural systems and livelihoods in mountain areas, rarely are the implications of those systems on nutrition elaborated. Similarly, existing nutritional data is as a rule not disaggregated on a geographical, ecological or livelihood basis and literature on poverty, food insecurity or vulnerability does not consider the mountain context. Nevertheless, the scattered data that are available point to an alarming food and nutrition situation in some mountain areas. At the same time, there are also examples of positive change in other areas.
To read the review 2002, click here.
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Literature review
Click to download the review (2002) in pdf (155Kb).
