1 . A recent study questions whether placing attention on economic growth is the best way to improve child nutrition in low-and middle-income countries. Subu is a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Massachusetts. He says there is a common belief on the best way to improve child health in developing countries. He puts it this way: “Let’s just go after economic growth and then everything else will just follow.” But he says that is not always true.
Take India for example. A common measure of a country’s economic health is GDP (gross domestic product). India’s GDP has been growing by more than five percent a year. That is a higher growth rate than most Western countries. Yet more than two-fifths of India’s children are underweight. And Subu says, the percentage of underweight children has changed little since the early 1990s. He and other researchers asked a question, “Was economic growth failing to benefit children in countries other than India?” They looked at health surveys carried out since 1990 in 36 low-and middle-income countries, mostly South of Africa’s Sahara Desert. The researchers compared the effect of GDP growth and signs of child malnutrition-like physical weakness, slow growth and being underweight. But the researchers found only a small relationship.
The group reported their findings in the Journal Lancet Global Health. Subu says money should be spent on clear water, waste-treatment system and other programs. “Without these directing measures, what we are seeing is that economic growth by itself is not making much difference,” said Subu.
But that is not how Lawrence Haddad sees the case. He is head of the Institute of Development Studies in Britain. Lawrence Haddad says malnutrition has dropped sharply over the past 20 years in countries like Vietnam, Ghana or Brazil. He says economic growth was responsible for half of those declines. “The other half is because of improvements in water, health systems and nutrition programs,” said Haddad.
1. Why does the author take India for example?| A．To stress the importance of GDP. |
| B．To arouse reader’s interest in the topic. |
| C．To prove economic growth can’t improve child nutrition. |
| D．To show India has a higher growth rate than most Western countries. |
| A．Lacking nutrition. | B．Getting nutrition. |
| C．Providing nutrition. | D．Wasting nutrition. |
| A．Two-fifths of India’s children are underweight. |
| B．Economic growth only fails to benefit children in India. |
| C．Lawrence Haddad looked at health surveys carried out since 1990. |
| D．Subu believed economic growth itself could hardly make a difference. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Disapproving. |
| C．Unconcerned. | D．Doubtful. |
