The riddle of malnutrition : the long arc of biomedical and public health interventions in Uganda /

The riddle of malnutrition : the long arc of biomedical and public health interventions in Uganda /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Tappan, Jennifer, author.
Imprint:	Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, [2017] ©2017
Description:	xx, 218 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	Perspectives on global health Perspectives on global health.
Subject:	Malnutrition in children -- Uganda -- Prevention. Malnutrition in infants -- Uganda -- Prevention. Nutrition policy -- Uganda. Preventive health services -- Uganda. Malnutrition -- Treatment -- Uganda. Malnutrition -- prevention & control. Infant. Child. Public Health. Preventive Health Services. Malnutrition in children -- Prevention. Malnutrition -- Treatment. Nutrition policy. Preventive health services. Uganda. Uganda.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11402159

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780821422458 (hc : alk. paper) 0821422456 9780821422465 (pb : alk. paper) 0821422464 9780821445914 (pdf)
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-210) and index.
Summary:	More than ten million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition globally each year. In Uganda, longstanding efforts to understand, treat, and then prevent the condition initially served to medicalize it, in the eyes of both biomedical personnel and Ugandans who brought their children to the hospital for treatment and care. Medicalization meant malnutrition came to be seen as a disease - as a medical emergency - not a preventable condition, further compromising nutritional health in Uganda. Rather than rely on a foreign-led model, physicians in Uganda responded to this failure by developing a novel public health program known as Mwanamugimu. The new approach prioritized local expertise and empowering Ugandan women, blending biomedical knowledge with African sensibilities and cultural competencies. In The Riddle of Malnutrition, Jennifer Tappan examines how over the course of half a century Mwanamugimu tackled the most fatal form of childhood malnutrition-kwashiorkor-and promoted nutritional health in the midst of postcolonial violence, political upheaval, and neoliberal resource constraints. She draws on a diverse array of sources to illuminate the interplay between colonialism, the production of scientific knowledge, and the delivery of health services in contemporary Africa.

Table of Contents:

Diagnostic uncertainty and its consequences
Medicalizing malnutrition
The miracle of Kitobero
In the shadows of structural adjustment and HIV
Epilogue : remedicalizing malnutrition and the Plumpy'Nut Revolution.