- Title
- Aboriginal children, history and health: why growth faltering is a moral problem
- Creator
- Boulton, John
- Relation
- Australian Journal of Child and Family Health Nursing Vol. 14, Issue 1, p. 9-13
- Publisher
- Cambridge Media
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Freedom from hunger is a prerequisite of optimal growth in the first two years of life. This is a self-evident given in our Western society with its roots in the Neolithic agricultural revolution of eight thousand years ago. We take for granted the causal relation between a child's food intake, growth and health, and accept without question that one's adult stature is predicated on the pattern of growth in the first two years of life. Although this belief system has its foundation in scientific evidence, that does not mean that it is shared by people whose hunter-gatherer forebears never aspired to be farmers. In such a society, the equation that Westerners take for granted that "food = growth + body strength" is not relevant, nor the notion that the rate of a child's growth has a value. This conflict in belief systems may be an unexpected challenge for nurses and doctors who choose to work amongst families in remote Aboriginal Australia in desert regions such as the Kimberley and the Western Desert communities of the Pilbara and Central Australia.
- Subject
- nutrition; Aboriginal health; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; cultural awareness
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1354189
- Identifier
- uon:31229
- Identifier
- ISSN:1839-8782
- Language
- eng
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