Please find below some questions which should serve as a guide for reading the chapter/things to discuss. Reading the entire chapter is mandatory. Submit the answers as an assignment.
What is the nutrition-based poverty trap? Discuss the arguments for and against the theory (as discussed in the chapter) (3+7=10)
Response: The idea of a nutrition-based poverty trap is relatively old and simple. In fact, it is commonly known that in order to survive, humans need a certain number of calories. Therefore, poor individuals would not be able to afford the amount of food that would fulfill the minimum number of calories required to address our metabolic needs. This would prevent the poor individuals from achieving physical efforts or general motions of living which would put them in a disadvantageous position.. Park Solhin exemplifies this idea that he could not work as a construction worker because he was physically too weak to do so. Additionally, he was not enoughly prepared for any more skilled work. The theory goes the opposite way as well since when people get richer, they can afford more food and then fulfill the number of calories needed. There is even extra food that would make the richer individuals physically stronger and more productive than if they were starving. This theory assumes that over time the gaps between richer and poorer would become wider.
The arguments against it suggest that this might be a logical possibility but not proven in practice. One missing aspect of this argument is that the poor eat as much as they can. Looking at the S shaped curve it would be obvious that if the poor could become more productive and get out of the poverty trap they would eat whenever they have the opportunity to. In reality, this is not factual since most individuals living with less than 99 cents a day do not put aside every penny into buying food. Additionally, they do not appear to be starving and their spending just proves it. In reality, most individuals living with less than 99 cents a day do not put aside every penny into buying food. There is also numerical data demonstrating that argument. The author brought up an analysis of eighteen countries that shows, in part, the spending of the poor. In terms of consumption in the extremely poor rural areas, food consumption constitutes between 36-79% of the total consumption which differs from the urban area where food consumption represents 53-74%. What is interesting is that the reason why the spending is not completely on food is not solely because they spent on other necessities. For instance in Udaipur, poor individuals could spend 30% of their income on food if they stopped consuming alcohol, tobacco…
Even if there are indispensable expenses, such as medicines, clothes. Based on the theory, we could presume that if more money were able to be spent, all of it would be devoted to food. The thing is that this is not completely accurate. In India, the data shows that in 1983, when observing the spending of the poorest group, when there was a one percent increase, only 0.67 percent would go into food expenditure. This expenditure trend was not that different between the rich and poor individuals which again contradicts the argument of a nutrition poverty trap that predicted a wider gap. Another fascinating aspect is that even the spending on food is not spent in maximizing calories. They would rather buy more expensive but tasting calories. The example of the state of Maharashtra in India in 1983 shows only half of the additional food expenditure goes into maximizing calories, the other usually goes into the better-tasting, more expensive ones.
Another research conducted in China shows that when households could benefit from subsidies that decreased the prices of certain staple foods, people would be more likely to buy less of those items. In other words, those subsidies did not improve the nutritional content. This could be explained by the fact that eating staple foods are considered as being associated with the idea of being poor. These subsidies increased their purchasing power which might have made them feel richer. This perception has made them consume less of those which demonstrates that maximizing calories was not a priority compared to the tasting aspect. In India, there is a certain increase in obesity and diabetes. This is in part because the urban upper middle classes get richer. Therefore, one of the reasons that this theory might be valid is that most of the population has enough food to eat. If starvation exist, this would be related to the distribution of food. Even though it seems that even the very poor individuals, earn enough money to afford the sufficient amount of food since calories is still cheap except in certain instances.
The idea of
The authors mention that there has been evidence on the poor not spending additional budget on calorie intake. What can be some of the possible reasons for that? (6)
The authors contemplate that people could be eating less. Do we have any evidence to suggest that? What are some of the reasons for which people might be eating less? (4+4=8)
Discuss the relation between calories and productivity (as discussed in the chapter) (4).
What is the Barker hypothesis? (4)
What has been the focus of majority of anti-poverty programs in developing countries to solve hunger? What are some of the issues with such programs (provide examples)? What are some other alternative policies the authors suggest? (4+4+4=12)