Psychosomatic Medicine 31:193-200 (1969)
© 1969 American Psychosomatic Society

Ecology, Malnutrition, and Mental Development

¹ Child Study Center and the Department of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine New Haven, Conn

In this paper an attempt is made to show how, in the published behavioral studies of protein-calorie malnourished children, a methodological disregard for the ecology of malnutrition has not made it possible to determine the nature of the children's poor performance in the developmental tests used. Such performance could have been mediated by biochemical disorders resulting from nutritional deficiency, by biological and social factors coexisting with malnutrition, or by some interaction of all variables coming into play. Because malnutrition is given in a specific social context and associated with certain biological and psychological conditions, it is not possible to determine the impact of protein-calorie deficiency simply by comparing the test performance of malnourished and non-malnourished children. Prospective studies attempting to use the affected cases as their own controls are recommended.

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