Nutrition and National Development: The Case of Chile

Abstract

This study is an historical analysis of food consumption and nutrition in Chile emphasizing the influence of political and economic factors on nutritional standards. It attempts to document and explain the persistence of malnutrition as a widespread social problem in Chile even as the country achieved a relatively advanced state of economic development and boasted an unusually progressive record of social legislation. The major findings of the study were: (a) Chile's pattern of development, social reform efforts notwithstanding, consistently discriminated against low-income groups, and (b) this discrimination perpetuated low standards of nutrition and low levels of food consumption among the country's poor and undermined the effectiveness of specific measures to alleviate malnutrition.