Positive deviance in child nutrition : with emphasis on psychosocial and behavioural aspects and implications for development

Positive deviance has been used to describe the health growth and developmental trends of certain children with regard to the performance of other children in the community and the family. It is seen as a from of social behavioral and psychological adaptability to nutritional stress. With regard to young child nutrition positive deviants are children who grow and develop adequately in low-income families living in impoverished environments where the majority of children are malnourished and growth is retarded. Positive deviance is studied to learn about adaptive child care and feeding behaviors including social networks which support them with the ultimate goal of designing policies and developing programs which reinforce and transfer these adaptive mechanisms to the malnourished. This document focuses on psychosocial and behavioral considerations. It places positive deviance in an evolutionary context as a form of adaptation and reviews theories linking infant development to nutrition. The first part defines positive overviews what has been written on the subject and draws policy and program implications. The second part looks at considerations for research in positive deviance and relates that research to epidemiological methods. It presents a model for conducting program-relevant research a conceptual framework for the research and an overview of important concepts and variables then reviews a series of methodological problems and ways to deal with them.