A geographical analysis of nutrition in the Eastern Cape and Ciskei

Abstract

From preface: The primary aim of the thesis is to make an anthropometric assessment of levels of nutrition of black pre-school children in selected communities of the Eastern Cape and Ciskei. The communities are those of black labourers and their families on white-owned commercial farms in the Dias Divisional Council area of the Eastern Cape; a rural community of an area of Ciskei known as the Amatola Basin; and Tsweletsl'lele, a 'closer settlement' or resettlement area in Ciskei. A pilot survey of school entrants in the Albany magisterial district also sheds light on the nutrition of children in the small towns, such as Grahamstown, of the Eastern Cape. Through an analysis of nutritional conditions in these disparate communities, it should be possible to begin to establish the geographical variation of nutrition in the region. Black communities in the metropolitan area of Port Elizabeth are not considered in the thesis, but on-going surveillance in the city, by the author, will elucidate nutritional conditions there. In achieving the primary aim of the thesis, attention will be focussed on inter-community rather than intra-community variation in nutrition. Nutrition may vary within communities (intra-community variation), for example, within different parts of the Dias Divisional Council area. While such variation is 1 ikely to be minimal, as will be discussed in the presentation of results in chapter 6, section A(l), it is in itself important, and present research endeavours within the surveillance programme are being geared to explore this dimension of nutritional variation more fully. Inter-community variation in nutrition provides, however, a more than sufficient focus for the thesis. A secondary aim of the thesis is to explore the relationship between nutritional status and socio-economic conditions prevailing in the surveyed communities. The secondary aim makes it possible to obtain a better understanding of the processes whi ch infl uence the geographical pattern of nutrition. A consideration of socio-economic conditions, both within the communities and within the Eastern Cape and Ciskei as a whole, also provides a context in which the nutrition results can be assessed. The third aim of the thesis is to assess possible applications of the survey results to policy formulation, thereby providing an applied dimension to the work.