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The Nutrition Transition and Its Relationship to Demographic Change

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Nutrition and Health in Developing Countries

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Notes

  1. 1.

    1 Two extant theories of change address key factors that affect and are affected by nutritional change. One relates to the demographic transition—the shift from a pattern of high fertility and high mortality to one of low fertility and low mortality (typical of modern industrialized nations). Even more directly relevant is the concept of the epidemiologic transition, first described by Omran [1]. The epidemiologic transition describes the shift from a pattern of high prevalence of infectious diseases and malnutrition, resulting from pestilence, famine, and poor environmental sanitation, to a pattern of high prevalence of chronic and degenerative diseases strongly associated with lifestyle. A fourth pattern of delayed degenerative diseases has been more recently formulated [2]. Accompanying this progression is a major shift in age-specific mortality patterns and life expectancy. The concepts of demographic and epidemiologic transition share a focus on the ways in which populations move from one pattern to the next. The framework developed here mirrors these concepts of demographic and disease change.

  2. 2.

    2 Economists have given a great deal of attention to another dimension of economic change, namely, the transition from a subsistence to a cash economy. The most impressive body of knowledge on the dietary effects of commercialization comes from six large case studies conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in the Philippines, Guatemala, the Gambia, Rwanda, Kenya, and Malawi. These studies indicated that commercialization substantially helped to alleviate hunger; however, increased income alone did not solve the problems of malnutrition [29–35]. In some cases (e.g., the Gambia), income increases were converted directly into food consumption; in others, particularly in environments where food markets were undeveloped, such as Rwanda, diet was still more influenced by the subsistence economy than by cash income

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

    Barry M. Popkin

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  1. Barry M. Popkin
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Richard D. Semba MD, MPH

  2. Nutrition and HIV/AIDS Policy, United Nations World Food Programme, Rome, Italy

    Martin W. Bloem MD, PhD

  3. Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Martin W. Bloem MD, PhD

  4. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA

    Martin W. Bloem MD, PhD

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Popkin, B.M. (2008). The Nutrition Transition and Its Relationship to Demographic Change. In: Semba, R.D., Bloem, M.W., Piot, P. (eds) Nutrition and Health in Developing Countries. Nutrition and Health Series. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-464-3_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-464-3_20

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