The South American context and the double burden of malnutrition
As some more contextual background might provide a better understanding of the in-depth posts, we decided to provide some more information on South America. Herein, we will briefly discuss the background and context of the region and how the double burden of malnutrition might relate to that.
General information, history, and geography
South America is the southern part of the American landmass. It is not to be confused with the Latin-American region, which also includes Central America and the Caribbean isles. South America includes Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentine, and Chile. It is the fourth largest continent, with a total landmass of 17.814.000 km2 and a population of 422,5 million in 2016. Geographically it is immensely diverse, from the Andes mountains long stretched between Chile and Venezuela to the Amazonian rainforests in the east around the equator and large portions of drier areas in Argentine and Chile. Historically, it owes its name to the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who ‘discovered’ the ‘New World’ in 1501. Nonetheless, the region was already widely inhabited by indigenous populations in both the Andes and Amazonian areas. Later, the region was taken over by Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors and most countries gained independence in the nineteenth century. With the slave trade, even more cultures merged in through displaced people from West-Africa, mostly settling in the northeastern countries of South America.
Socioeconomic and cultural context
Contemporary culture in South America is a product of these cultures merging, both in language and practices. Religiously this had led to a predominance of the Roman-Catholic church. The cuisine has traditionally been healthy, though the nutritional transition has led to the consumption of more processed and sugary food. Across the board, South America has traditionally always been reliant on exporting primary goods and importing manufactured goods, as the export of minerals, (precious) metals, agricultural goods, and oil. This makes the main part of the economy focused on the primary and secondary sectors. Over the past decades, South American governments have been strengthening their domestic industries through policy measures on both import and export of goods. This has led to growing economies across the board, though our third blog post emphasizes that this does not always happen equally in and among countries.
Demographic patterns
The economic growth has led to increasing welfare and thus increased life expectancy and lower fertility. This demographic transition is not yet complete, leading to a relatively small proportion of the working population having to sustain both the elderly and younger population. There are also large flows of transnational migration in South America, mainly for economic reasons. This, together with economic growth, has led to rapid urbanization since most new job opportunities are in the urban areas. Argentina and Uruguay have, for instance, been among the most urbanized countries in the world.
The double burden of malnutrition in a South American context
The double burden of malnutrition can be related to several characteristics of South America. Firstly, the changing food pattern combined with the more sedentary lifestyle associated with urbanization might contribute to increasing rates of overweight/obesity (OW/OB). This sedentary lifestyle will also increase due to a shift in sedentary practices at the workplace. Socioeconomic disparities can lead to both undernourishment and OW/OB, whereas people with both high and low socioeconomic status are more prone to OW/OB. The remaining burden of undernourishment has many determinants. Some important ones, however, are low socioeconomic status and the inaccessibility to nutritious food. The latter can be the consequence of processed and high sugar food being the food source that is mainly available. It could also be that food, in general, is scarce in more remote or disfavorable areas for food production, like the Andes. This relates to the geographic patterns of the continent.
More in-depth insights into the double burden of malnutrition in South America can be found in our other blog posts but we hope this overview has given the readers insight into the South American context and how many factors related to the double burden of malnutrition there, making it an interesting area of study.
