Geographical Features of Malnutrition in Tbilisi

Abstract

In the present day and age, majority of Georgian population suffers from food shortage and consumes only a small part of daily norm of calories. In addition, there is a low awareness of this issue among the community which can lead to malnutrition. Greater number of populations is suffering from malnutrition. Specialists think that apart from not having enough food, malnutrition is one of the most serious dangers to population health. So it is not accidental that in 2019 Global Hunger Index (GHI), Georgia took the 39 th place among 117 countries. According to experts if the country does not pay enough attention to the issue then in about 15 years, we will produce a degraded generation. (https://www.globalhungerindex.org/georgia.html).

Nutrition value can be considered normal if a person consumes 2600-2800 calories a day (when it allows every function of an organism to operate properly). Based on calorie intake, an overall condition of world’s population has improved over the last decade. However, differences are also noticeable. In developed countries the average daily consumption energy per capita is 3400kcal, while in Latin America and central Africa it equals 2700 and 2000 kcal respectively. In developed countries 1/3 of food products are of animal origin, while in developing ones-only 7%. The consumption of animal source foods is especially high in the countries of Latin America, which is caused by the favorable climatic conditions necessary for the development of stockbreeding.

The geography of malnutrition as a direction of integral geography, explores the distribution of malnutrition in the world, the calorie norms per person per day and all its causative factors.

In the future, for the country, any step taken in this area will be fruitful. It will be possible to make recommendations, teach about proper nutrition and for Georgia as a fast-growing country, it is necessary to focus on the health and care of the population.

Thus, this paper can be considered as an initial step towards studying the geography of imperfect nutrition throughout Georgia in the future and regulating the problems related to it.

(the project of advancing national strategy for food safety and promoting small farmers by Oxfam- the study of national nutrition in Georgia, Tbilisi, 2016).