Kwashiorkor

Janet has been teaching her 8th graders about nutrition as part of the digestive system unit in biology. We talk about nutritional excess and deficiency, the latter being of much greater concern here. One of the diseases covered is kwashiorkor, or extreme protein deficiency resulting in distended bellies, brittle orange hair, acetone breath and overall underdevelopment. People in food-wealthy countries may not be that familiar with the characteristic symptoms, possibly even mistaking their swollen bellies as obesity. Unfortunately kwashiorkor is very common here, but now that the kids have a name for it they go around pointing at the most under nourished kids around town and in their classroom chanting “kwashiorkor!” One particularly small kid at our school named Unique has permanently earned the nickname. It’s all part of the African reality.