Complementary Feeding: Nutrition, Culture and Politics

by Gabrielle Palmer

Gabrielle Palmer's groundbreaking book "The Politics of Breastfeeding" highlighted the controversies surrounding the aggressive promotion of breast milk substitutes. She now turns her attention to complementary feeding - the first foods that a child eats besides milk. For most of human existence, children went without industrially processed foods and branded food products. Can we applaud the progress of the way children are fed today? In our unequal world one billion people risk their health through overconsumption while two billion people are hungry. The health problems of both groups start in early childhood. The power and influence of the food industry has increased dramatically in recent decades. Seductive and often unethical modern marketing methods have led to the promotion of unsuitable, unnecessary and sometimes harmful baby foods. Yet not all industrially processed foods are bad and not all 'natural' foods are good. Both poor and rich children may be inappropriately fed. What lessons can we learn from history? How do cultural and religious beliefs influence the choice of food? Can government initiatives have any effect? How can we provide good nutrition for all infants?

This brief, compassionate and thought-provoking new book will be of interest to anyone who is curious about the world, its children and their nutrition, and will stimulate discussion and debate as part of the campaign to create a world where health for all is a true goal.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Gabrielle Palmer is a nutritionist and a campaigner. She was a breastfeeding counsellor in the 1970s and helped establish the UK pressure group Baby Milk Action. In the early 1980s she lived and worked as a volunteer in Mozambique. She has written, taught and campaigned on infant feeding issues, particularly the unethical marketing of baby foods.
In the 1990s she co-directed the International Breastfeeding: Practice and Policy course at The Institute of Child Health in London until she went to live in China for two years. She has worked independently for various health and development agencies, including serving as HIV and Infant Feeding Officer for UNICEF New York. She recently worked at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she had originally studied nutrition.
She is a mother and a grandmother.

Reviews

[Seawood · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent summary of infant nutrition in the context of culture and politics: if you don't get why jars of baby food are a scam or why people boycott Nestle you should read this.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent source of information on how to feed babies. Easy read, packed with well-researched facts. Highly recommend.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would have been a disappointment not to have been able to give this book 5 stars. Fortunately it is that perfect combination - a slim and brilliant work.

As the preamble described it as based on a discussion paper I thought it might feel rather too slight, something that wasn't really a book. I've met Gabrielle Palmer briefly once and was charmed by her down to earth, humble yet passionate demeanour. I am not surprised that she has produced a book which could be described in just the same way. I loved her telling of her baby grandson attempting to eat a garden snail on her watch, and her inclusion of her boycott of Nestlé as an example of food taboos but these in no way detracted from the thoughtful academic evidence and musings. I had been expecting more of a straightforward polemic on the baby food industry - and one could certainly be written. This however had a wider remit, despite including the impact of marketing, and was extremely thought-provoking. At times, it was almost too painful to read. I had almost forgotten the declaration of Alma Ata "Health For All by 2000" which had permeated my health professional education until Palmer reminded me of it.

She writes about the importance of entitlement to food - pointing out what is obvious to us but we cannot bear to think about - that the reporters and aid workers in famine regions are not starving - and to water. She writes of the dangers of treating this as a medical problem to be resolved with supplies intended for particular emergency situations. She describes how maternal diet in pregnancy and, crucially, birth practices have negative implications for babies' dietary needs later in their first year, yet relates the very funny story of a breastfeeding scientist (a man, to clarify) describing a 15 month old who was still exclusively breastfed and on being asked if he'd tested the child for anaemia replied "No, I couldn't catch him!" [Don't try this at home, folks] I was particularly interested in what she had to say about diet in earlier times being largely adequate and had a jolly good squirm my self at her references to the potential importance of eating squirmy or crunchy things in the form of insects and bugs.

My one quibble with the book is her occasional assumption that if a child is healthy in the here and now then its diet must be a healthy one.

[Max Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important and interesting subject matter, but disjointed as a book, perhaps the chapters were originally separately written articles? i skipped the section on feeding kids insects which is pretty tangential to the subject at hand. Extremely brief on each topic. A quick read if this stuff is new to you.

[Alice Chau-Ginguene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like the Politics of Breastfeeding, very good read. Too bad it's such a thin book. But it's still exceptionally fascinating nonetheless. Highly recommended to anyone who is interested about what went on our modern diet and lifestyle.