Bates and Chavez, with the students in last year's clinical assessment of the Otomi children, found 84 percent exhibited mild to severe malnutrition. All are conditions that adequate protein, food energy and vitamin A could prevent. The team will measure and examine the children and conduct educational programs on nutrition at La Pini. A feeding supplementation program will be in that village throughout the year, then the team will return in 1997 to examine the changes in lifestyle and health among the children. It's been proven that when childhood mortality decreases, population growth also comes down.
Parents are willing to practice birth control when they know their children are going to live.