ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the behavioral data by saying that authors have yet to find a significant difference in behavior attributable to dietary deficiency of the mother. A number of deprivation studies have been conducted with laboratory animals and with farm animals, and they have determined that food deprivation of the mother, inflicted at different stages of her pregnancy, will differentially affect the various organs of the fetus because at any one instant, the organs are in different stages of development and, hence, of vulnerability. It would be ideal to study the effects of single-nutrient deficiencies, for prevention or repletion programs could then be most precisely targeted, but such pure deficiencies are uncommon in human experience. For that reason, the term protein-calorie malnutrition is very useful for describing the situation in the world at large. Although the term is intentionally vague, to describe a complex situation, the nutritional problem may nevertheless be somewhat more precise than that indicated by the term.
