ABSTRACT
Growth faltering is an index of a child's health and population morbidity. The results are discussed from the perspective of growth faltering being emblematic of the state of Aboriginal children's health over the past sixty years in comparison with the health of non-Aboriginal children. The analysis is situated within a description of the historical evidence for Aboriginal child health at first contact with Europeans; of the pre-scientific constructs of growth in colonial Australia. Growth faltering from malnutrition during infancy onwards also contributes to the high burden of illness and risk of readily preventable death experienced by children who live on remote communities. During this period other community-based surveys corroborated the extent of childhood malnutrition on Cape York. This chapter explains the Hunger not only signifies the dysphoria and pain from lack of food, it is a construct of extreme social exclusion, and hence an echo of the nineteenth century escalation of want through hunger to famine.
