Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Inadequate Calories in Average Diet

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov 10 2002 (IPS) - The food situation in Guatemala is of grave concern because the average diet is 2,159 calories, falling short of the average 2,802 calories of most Latin American countries, warns MINUGUA, the United Nations mission to this country. Official figures state that 48.8 percent of schoolchildren in first grade suffer chronic undernourishment.

“Hunger is trapping them in a vicious circle of vulnerability, from hunger to poverty to hunger,” says MINUGUA. This deprives them of the opportunity to develop, and deprives them of a fundamental human right: adequate nutrition, according to the UN agency.

Food insecurity — the inability to meet basic nutrition needs — has worsened in Guatemala since early 2001 due to plummeting international coffee prices and the lack of rains, which wiped out local food crops.