Can a pill solve poverty?

There is no shortcut to eradicating stunting

South Africa’s supermarkets are well stocked. By the crude measure of calories, the country produces and imports more than enough to feed every child in it. And yet more than one in five young South African children - by some counts closer to one in four - is stunted: too short for their age, the mark of poor nutrition or repeated illness in the first years of life.

This is not a story about famine. South Africa grows and imports plenty. Yet stunting here is severe and stubborn. That is the puzzle. If the food is there, why are so many children still too short for their age, and what can actually be done about it?