Loop States

21.3% of children under the age of five are stunted. Children are stunted because of malnutrition in the first 1000 days of contraception. The effect on a child being stunted in incurable and lasts a lifetime. A stunted child is underdeveloped in the brain, more venerable to infection and diseases also raise risks of obesity.

There are many factors as to why there is malnutrition in the world. I looked are malnutrition and stunted children in the world as a whole which showed me the places that have the highest percentage of stunted children. This gave me reasons to look into these countries.

To represent stunted children, I have chosen flowers. Flowers need the right nutrition and attention to grow and flourish, as do children. Flowers that don't get the right nutrition do not grow and reach their full potential.

Watching coding tutorials gave me inspiration to develop the flower idea. Show me ways that I can use coding to further emphasis the different development between a stunted child and children that are exposed to the right critical nutrition.

I thought to show the countries with the most stunted children in relation to the world, showing this with flourishing flowers in the wealthy countries. Mallow dried colours to convey poor growth and nutrition.

I decided this was too hard to focus worldwide and different countries had different reasons why there were stunted children. I chose to focus my attention on Africa because according to a UNICEF report, although the global amount of stunted children had gone down the number of stunted children in Africa increased.

The key reasons for malnutrition are extreme poverty, population growth, living cost growing, and globalization.

Africa has one of the highest population growth rates. The country Nigeria has 14.8% of global poverty and is also the most populated city in Africa.

In the sketches below I was trying to show the places in the country that have access to highly nutritious food for example meat, veggies, fruits, eggs, and dairy products.

This is shown with the greenery and red. The black covering is showing the population growing.

For my coding ability, I needed to simplify my design. In the sketches below the water cans are filled with different types of nutrition. One can have a high variety from meats to veggies and the other has just grains with poor nutrition for infants. The different flowers grow differently depending on what type of nutrition they are being exposed too.

To show extreme poverty I looked at the way people in extreme poverty live compared to the people stable in Africa. In the sketches below I have put the two different living styles next to each other to emphasise one extreme to the other. The greenery on the wealthy side represent the access to nutritious food. Flowers growing to convey that. I then explored other ways to achieve this.

I thought the left sketch to be the most successful. I thought the idea of the extreme poverty underneath the wealthier stable living was powerful. For the loop and movement, I wanted to bring flowers into it and the basic nutrition that flowers require to grow. Sun and rain. Because the extreme poverty living is beneath they will be blocked from the sunlight and rain. Nothing will grow at the bottom as there is not the right nutrition for flowers.

This assignment was a huge challenge for me. I explored many ideas and watched many videos. I have learned patients, perseverance, and also how to manage time. A lot of aspects to my loop had to be deleted because of my coding knowledge and learning ability. I originally had the flower moving to a random point on the x access, however they were moving to fast and did not look appealing. My end result was all that I could do in terms of coding. The design it's self I am pleased with as I think it is strong and conveys why there issue is an issue if stunted children under the age of five.

Code:

PImage background;

PImage[] flower = new PImage[7];

PImage[] flower1 = new PImage[7];

PImage[] flower2 = new PImage[7];

PImage[] flower3 = new PImage[7];

PImage[] flower4 = new PImage[7];

PImage[] flower5 = new PImage[7];

PImage[] flower6 = new PImage[7];

PImage sun;

PImage[] rain = new PImage[30];

int sunX = 10;

int sunY = 10;

int direction = 30;

float flowerX = 53;

int flowerY = 0;

float flower1X = 22;

float flower2X = 40;

float flower3X = 8;

float flower4X = 43;

float flower5X = 330;

float flower6X = 250;

int frameCounter = 0;

void setup(){

size(500,500);

background(0);

sun = loadImage("sun .png");

background = loadImage("background.png");

flower2[0] = loadImage("flower1 .png");

flower3[0] = loadImage("flower2.png");

flower6[2] = loadImage("flower 3 .png");

flower5[4] = loadImage("flower5 .png");

flower1[0] = loadImage("flower7.png");

flower[0] = loadImage("flower4.png");

for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {

rain[i] = loadImage("rain.png");

}

}

void draw(){

background(0);

image(background,0,0);

image(sun,sunX,sunY);

image(flower[0],flowerX,flowerY,width,height);

image(flower1[0],flower1X,flowerY,width,height);

image(flower2[0],flower3X,flowerY,width,height);

image(flower3[0],flower3X,flowerY,width,height);

}

void keyPressed(){

if (direction % 60 >= 30) {

sunX -=2;

sunY -=4;

} else {

sunX += 2;

sunY +=4;

}

direction++;

println("Exporting Frame: "+frameCounter);

println("sunposition: "+sunX);

saveFrame("+extreme_poverty-######.png");

}

2018-jme-brochure.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://www.who.int/nutgrowthdb/2018-jme-brochure.pdf?ua=1

Half of the world’s poor live in just 5 countries. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/half-world-s-poor-live-just-5-countries

Onyango, A. W., Jean-Baptiste, J., Samburu, B., & Mahlangu, T. L. M. (2019). Regional Overview on the Double Burden of Malnutrition and Examples of Program and Policy Responses: African Region. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, 75(2), 127–130. https://doi.org/10.1159/000503671

Pixl 8. (n.d.). Malnutrition rises in Africa despite global decline. SciDev.Net Sub-Saharan Africa. Retrieved September 25, 2020, from http://www.scidev.net/index.cfm?originalUrl=/sub-saharan-africa/nutrition/news/malnutrition-rises-in-africa-despite-global-decline.html&

Population of Africa (2020)—Worldometer. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-population/

Stop stunting in South Asia—Part 1. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://www.unicef.org/rosa/stories/stop-stunting-south-asia-part-1

World Poverty Clock. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://worldpoverty.io