The impact of undernutrition on young girls has received special attention. In many parts of the world, poverty often interacts with sociocultural factors that make girls and adult women less favoured than men. Female infants and children commonly receive less medical care and also less and lower-quality food than male children. In a number of countries in the developing world, these discriminatory attitudes result not only in higher rates of protein- energy malnutrition among girls but also in an excess of mortality among them (Gómez 1993; United Nations Children’s Fund 1998, 1999). Undernourished girls are likely to.
