Malnutrition is one of the major public health problems in developing countries. It stems from poverty and ignorance. The family must be helped to learn nutrition habits and must be served by better basic health care. The Bah ' community health care workers provide basic nutrition education as a part of their .primary health care services. Promoting breast feeding, teaching mothers to make appropriate weaning food utilizing locally available food, and training them to make oral rehydration solutions, form part of the basic nutrition education that is being carried out by the Bah ' community health care workers.
Malnutrition is often both a result and a cause of social and economic under-development.
Therefore nutrition and health care activities should be fully integrated with the activities of other sectors involved in community development. To support local agriculture, one Bah ' community in the Philippines has established a cooperative store, a portion of whose profits support an infant who is cared for by the local governing council. When the local population is actively involved in the formulation and implementation of community improvement activities, local priorities will be based on decisions resulting from a continuous dialogue between the people and the services. In Papua New Guinea, just such a dialogue resulted in a collaboration between the Bah ' community and a provincial government to reestablish health services in a remote area. Both programmes benefit from the extensive network of Bah ' communities and the participatory nature of Bah ' community life and the Bah ' decision-making process.