The Asia-Pacific region, home to most of the world's
undernourished people, needs urgent action to improve diets and reset its food
systems which are critical to the delivery of healthy, nutritious foods, says the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO),
reports NaijaAgroNet.
According to the findings of FAO's 2017 Regional Overview
of Food Security and Nutrition report, there is a pressing
need to tackle malnutrition alongside further promotion of the consumption of
healthier foods while curbing the growth in consumption of unhealthy
foods.
In addition to further investment in agriculture, the report
also underlines an urgent need to step up investment in other areas to tackle
malnutrition, such as improvements to sanitation, access to safe drinking
water, improving diets during the first 1,000 days of life and policies and
promotions to increase consumption of diverse nutrient-rich foods.
While food security has improved for millions of people in
the Asia-Pacific region, hunger and malnutrition appear to be on the rise in
some areas, the report warns. The latest figures indicate roughly
half-a-billion people are undernourished in Asia and the Pacific.
The situation is particularly dire for children below the
age of five. Overall, one-in-four suffers from stunting. However, the
report also finds that, during the last 15 years, obesity is on the rise, with
"significant increases" in the prevalence of overweight children,
particularly in South Asia, that is from three per cent to seven per cent and Oceania, from five per cent to nearly 10 per cent.
Isaac Oyimah with agency reports/GEE
