Is small healthy? Or did Seckler quite early in his research? Both of these questions arose to me after reading the two articles: "Malnutrition": An Intellectual Odyssey by David Seckler and "Small but Healthy by Gretel H Pelto and Pertti J. Pelto. In the next couple of pages I hope to compare and contrast these two articles by examining both hypothesis by each. Then, I'm going to give my opinion on the subject.
             To start out I would like to briefly explain Seckler's hypothesis. He gives the Idea, which goes against nutritionist's assumption about malnutrition, that people who are short in stature do to mild to moderate malnutrition are in fact healthy and well adapted to the amount of nutrition he or she receives. Seckler believes that In childhood children adapts to the low intake of nutrients by slowing down the rate of growth and by reducing growth he states that the body doesn't need the amount of nutrients considered to be properly nourished stated by nutritionists. According to Seckler "small but healthy individuals make up 80 to 90% of the population of developing countries who live in areas of food scarcity.
             If Seckler is correct then international food and nutrition programs can be redirected to a much smaller amount of people who suffer from "serious" malnutrition. The food aid budgets could by reduced by an exceptional amount because these small but healthy people are actually healthy and are not in need. Thus, giving relief to humanitarians who thought that hundreds of millions of people were suffering from malnutrition are actually healthy.
             This brings me to the explanation of why the article "Small but Healthy" by Pelto and Pelto was written. After Seckler wrote the malnutrition article a lot of arguments were raised against Seckler's article Pelto and Pelto wrote that Seckler failed to extensively define what
             ...