Thinner and thinner

I've been doing some reading on malnutrition and here's some of the facts that I came across.
According to the WHO:
- protein-energy malnutrition plays a major role in half of all under-five deaths each year in developing countries
- by the year 2015 the prevalence of malnutrition will have decreased to 17.6% globally
- overwhelming majority of these children, 112.8 million, will live in developing countries
- 70% of these children in Asia, particularly the southcentral region, which is 6.5 times the prevalence in the western hemisphere

For the past 2 days I've been hanging out in the medical wards of Kanti Children's Hospital doing rounds with about 20 other docs/medical students/interns. To my dismay rounds are not done in English - as I was told they would be - although all the physicians and students can speak English and charting is done in English (strange). So I try to pick up as much as I can by the random English terms they'll use in discussions, or by sneaking a peak at the patient charts whenever I can (there is no such thing as confidentiality in Nepal, the charts are laying out in the open on patient beds, along with their X-rays, pathology reports and drugs), and every so often the other students will show some kindness and point things out to me. The bulk of what I've come across are cases of gastroenteritis and respiratory diseased, but the common cause of many of these cases is malnutrition. There is even a specific "Severe Malnutrition Ward" for children under 5 who are literally skin and bones. At home, turn on the TV Sunday morning and you'll be inundated with countless images of starving children, but to see it face to face seems even more surreal than watching it behind a television window.

It took me some time to grapple with how detrimental malnutrition is. It seemed like a problem with such a simple solution: feed the kids and teach the mothers how to feed their children properly. I realize it's not as simple as that - or else malnutrition wouldn't be an issue. It's even more frustrating to realize that in North America our foremost pediatric problem is obesity, while children in Nepal are literally starving to death. Where is the justice in that? Malnutrition doesn't just end with muscle wasting and weakness, it catapults this vicious cycle where because these kids are malnourished they're immune systems become depressed making them more susceptible to infections of every kind, which could lead to gastroenteritis that further increases their metabolic needs and diminish their chances of improvement. Malnutrition is like this black hole that just grabs these kids deeper and deeper into sickness. The most devastating part about all of this is how preventable/treatable it all is. From the WHO report it's obvious that things are improving; but as I'm walking from bed to bed seeing these kids, all I feel is helplessness.