The double burden of malnutrition in Chile
This post is another post in the category country highlights. In the last few weeks, we have posted several country highlights about the double burden of malnutrition in Brazil, Ecuador, and last week Bolivia. This post will be about the double burden of malnutrition in Chile. We hope that you will enjoy it and if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comment section.
Country overview
Chile is the seventh biggest country in South America with a surface of 756.102 square kilometers and almost 18 million inhabitants. It is located on the southwest seaboard of the continent. It is a stretched narrow country with a coastline of 4300 km, however, the width of the country is at the widest point only 350km wide. The language that is mainly spoken in Chile is Spanish. However, some communities do have their own languages like Mapudungun, Rapa Nui, and Aymara. Chile is considered an upper-middle-income country with a rapidly expanding economy. Chile is one of the most prosperous countries in South-America and this shows in the amount of malnutrition that exists in this country.
The health system in Chile is a mixed public/private health care system. This system includes public insurance through the national health fund of Chile (FONASA) and private insurances known as ISAPRE’s. The Health system is overseen by the Chilean ministry of health and the system is funded by taxes. The public health system supplies essential health services and special treatments like immunization and the supplementary food program. The private sector is overseen by the System of Health Services (SNSS). Approximately 38% of the health expenditure are out-of-pocket spendings.
Undernutrition in Chile
When comparing the per capita gross domestic product, Chile is the second-highest on the list in South America. Due to the fact that we know that poverty is a good indicator of a high undernutrition rate it is not surprising that Chile has one of the lowest stunting rates in the entire continent (lower than 2%). The stunting rate of Chile compared to the other countries in South America can be seen in Figure 1. The fact that Chile is for South American standards quite a rich country is not enough to keep the undernutrition rate low. Chile has developed several policies that protect the most vulnerable population groups is the most important reason for this low undernutrition rate. One example of such a policy is the National Programs of Complementary Food (PNAC). This is a program that is developed in 1987 by the government and distributes free milk to young children to make sure that those children have less chance of becoming undernourished. Another program is the National Supplementary Feeding Programme (NSFP), which was developed in the 1920s. This program supplies food to working mothers with low-income and people who are at risk of becoming undernourished.
Overnutrition in Chile
The fact that the Chilean government has established these policies does keep the undernutrition rate low, however, the number of people with overnutrition in Chile is still rising. Several causes have been identified for the problem of overnutrition. The first cause is the urbanization in Chile. The amount of people who live in urban areas in Chile is extremely high, namely 88%. The urban lifestyle changes the traditional Chilean diet, which consists of lots of cereals and vegetables, into a diet with much more meat, fat, and processed food. These changes did have a positive effect on the undernutrition prevalence number, however, over time these changes led to an increase in the number of people that are overweight and obese. The urban lifestyle also decreased the number of people walking or taking a bike to their destination, because there are many options for motorized transportation that can be taken. This increases the likelihood of a sedentary lifestyle and more chance of becoming overweight or obese. The last problem of urbanization is that in the slums of these cities, where the poorest city inhabitants live, it is not safe for children to play outside. This is why parents often keep their children inside and they do not have the physical activity they need. All these different aspects do increase the overnutrition rate in Chile a lot. You can see in Figure 2 that the overnutrition rate in Chile is, with almost 10%, among the highest in South America.
Conclusion
The fact that undernutrition rates are impressively low in Chile does conclude that there is no double burden of malnutrition in Chile. Nonetheless, there is still a big overnutrition problem that needs to be solved. Due to the extremely high level of urbanization in Chile and the nutrition transition, Chile has one of the highest overnutrition rates in the entire continent, so there is still enough that needs to be done. Several countries within South America that still have a high undernutrition rate can learn different things from how Chile tackled the undernutrition problem by looking at the different policies around undernutrition that Chile has. This health problem has been dealt with appropriately which ensured Chile to have the lowest undernutrition rate in South America.
Friday will be our next and last post and we hope that you enjoyed reading our blog!
