The Dutch Hunger Winter

The Dutch Hunger Winter lasted from the start of November 1944 to the late spring of 1945. It was very cold winter in Western Europe and also it was very hard because of the war. The worst place was western Netherlands which was still under German control. The populations in western Netherlands were dropped rapidly because the German blocked foods. So, people in the western Netherlands were suffered from starving. Sometimes, they tried to survive with only 30 percent of daily calorie intake, and people ate grass and tulip bulbs. More than 20,000 people died because of food supplies.

From survivors, people found something interest. The Dutch survivors were a group of individuals who just suffered from one period of malnutrition and all of them suffered at exactly same time. Because of well health-care infrastructure in Netherlands, epidemiologists who study about epidemic diseases could follow the long-term effect of famine. Famine is scarcity of food. First of all was the weight of children who had been in the womb during the winter. Because of starvation, people got malnutrition, which is the condition when the body does not get enough nutrition from foods. If mother was well fed in the beginning of pregnancy and malnourished only in the roughly last 3 months of pregnancy, the babies were usually born smaller than normal babies. On the other hand, if mother was not well fed in the beginning of conception some a few months and well fed end of pregnancy, the baby’s weight was usually normal. It showed that the fetuses grow most in the end of pregnancy. So, there was difference between babies whose mother were well fed in the beginning and last a few months.

Second, however, biologist studied these babies who born in winter after 10 years later and they noticed that the baby who was born small lived with lower obesity rate. Also, after decays, baby from mother who ate well in the end of pregnancy has higher obesity rate and easily get other diseases. On the other hand babies whose mother well fed in the beginning was good health. These showed that some function which is related with person’s health was become when the beginning of the conception.

           More interesting is some of these effects are showed in present from children. The grandchildren of the women who suffered from malnutrition during the first three month of conception have higher obesity rate and get some diseases easily than other normal children. These noticed that one pregnant population can affect to grandchildren.