The paper describes first the food and nutrition problems of the Palestine refugees during the first two decades of their exile (1948-1970), using mostly unpublished and archival data. In the 70s and 80s, a number of surveys were carried out, showing an unmistakable improvement in the general nutritional status of young children. Weight-for-height, and recently height-for-age, all improved; vitamin A deficiency, a scourage in the early years, disappeared; iron-deficiency anaemia, however, persisted, and Type II diabetes mellitus became more prevalent. The paper gives some of the more noteworthy results of the 1990 Nutrition Survey carried out in collaboration with WHO and CDC Atlanta and suggests some reasons for the above changes. Finally, it describes the precautions which UNRWA is taking to monitor the availability of adequate food supplies for the poorer sections of the refugee population, in the face of the deteriorating situation in the Occupied Territories and the economic problems in all five UNRWA fields. © 1992 Oxford University Press.

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nutritional status Palestinian refugees refugee nutrition Middle East