Micronutrients and urban life-style: lessons from Guatemala

Guatemala is a nation of 10 million persons, at the northern point of the chain of five Republics derived from Spanish colonies on the Isthmus of Central America. The country is diverse in its ethnicities, its climate and terrain, and its agricultural pursuits. The majority of its population is poor, illiterate, and under-employed. It has had a unique and turbulent political history, and only recently has emerged. The traditional basis of the diet, dating to Mayan times, is maize and beans. Guatemala City, with its population in excess of 2 million inhabitants, having doubled since the Earthquake of 1976, is the only major metropolis. The pattern of dietary selection and the format of eating meals is changing in relationship to the size, congestion, economic evolution, and modernization of the capital city. A wider selection of foods is consumed in the city, but preparation follows the traditions of the rural cuisine. Street vendors play an ever larger role in the feeding of the urban poor. Quantitative data are only available for vitamin A and zinc, and only in certain subsegments of the population. The vitamin A in fortified foods, notably table sugar which is fortified with retinyl palmitate by legal mandate, makes up over one-third of the intake. The maize tortilla is an important sources of calcium, iron, zinc and copper. Average zinc intakes are appropriate, but the biological availability of the metal is low. The intake of iodine is totally dependent upon table salt which is inconsistently fortified. Data on micronutrient status exists for vitamin A, iron, iodine, riboflavin and zinc. With respect to rural areas, no major advantages or disadvantages in the adequacy of micronutrient nutriture can be claimed for the urban population. It is possible that, in the metropolitan area, vitamin A nutriture is slightly better and riboflavin status somewhat poorer than in the countryside. The prospects for future directions in urban lifestyle, in micronutrient status and in their interaction are uncertain. The pressure of growth are straining the ability of the municipal infrastructure and the industrial base to respond with provision of services and employment.