Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth

This paper examines the use of nutrition and health indicators for assessment of well-being and deprivation in the developing world, arguing that child anthropometric indicators provide a reliable, interesting, and readily available data source for comparison of absolute deprivation across populations and countries. Indicators of child malnutrition shortfall⎯especially height for age and weight for age⎯ can therefore be used to supplement statistics on income/consumption poverty in poor countries. A major drawback of child anthropometric indicators is their lack of coverage of the adult population. The paper also presents novel analyses of the association between economic growth and the incidence of stunting (low height for age) using data on spells of change. A very small but statistically significant association between changes in income and changes in stunting is found, confirming previous results based on other methodologies that economic growth is insufficient to reduce malnutrition and that direct nutrition and health interventions are required.