Health,Nutrition,and the Roots of World Population Growth

Abstract

As concern over the expansion of world population has grown, much of this “population explosion” has been attributed to the introduction of modern medical and public health techniques in developing countries. There is little evidence, however, to support this belief. Malaria eradication, immunization programs, improved sanitation, and the use of antibiotics are cited as examples of the kind of medical intervention that has sent death rates into downward spirals on a global basis. Yet what is often ignored is the fact that, while each of these measures is medically effective, none is universally applied, a condition that must be achieved before the potential value of these measures can be realized. Sustained population growth has been found to precede the development of medicine and public health as effective weapons against mortality, both in the population expansion of Europe, which began in the 17th century, and in that of modern developing countries.

This article postulates that the roots of the present population crisis are to be found in a worldwide improvement in nutrition that is based less on the amount of food produced than on a greatly enhanced capacity to distribute it. Better food distribution in Europe followed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and reached the developing countries late in the 19th century as the Third World came increasingly under the political domination of the West.