High number of children
are suffering the consequences of poor diets and a food system that is failing
them, UNICEF warned today in a new report on children, food and nutrition, and
as the United Nations and partners commemorate World Food Day, reports NaijaAgroNet.
The State of the World’s Children 2019: Children, food and
nutrition finds that at least 1 in 3 children under five – or 200
million – is either undernourished or overweight. Almost 2 in 3 children
between six months and two years of age are not fed food that supports their
rapidly growing bodies and brains. This puts them at risk of poor brain
development, weak learning, low immunity, increased infections and, in many
cases, death.
The report provides the most
comprehensive assessment yet of 21st century child malnutrition
in all its forms. It describes a triple burden of malnutrition: Undernutrition,
hidden hunger caused by a lack of essential nutrients, and overweight among
children under the age of five, noting that around the world:
- 149 million children are stunted,
or too short for their age, including 13.1 million children in Nigeria
- 50 million children are wasted, or too thin for their height, including 2.9 million children in Nigeria
The report warns that poor eating and
feeding practices start from the earliest days of a child’s life. Though
breastfeeding can save lives, for example, in Nigeria, only 27 per cent of
children under six months of age are exclusively breastfed and an increasing
number of children are fed infant formula. This means many Nigerian children
are missing out on the life-saving benefits of breastmilk which is a baby’s
first vaccine and offers the best possible nutrition at the start of life.
In Nigeria, malnutrition remains a
major public health and development concern:49 percent of children under five
years of age are not growing well (they are either stunted, wasted or
overweight). This is the second highest proportion after the Democratic
Republic of Congo in the West and Central Africa region. This is partly because
34 percent of children between six months and two years of age are fed food
that is not rich and diversified enough to ensure optimal growth.
As children begin transitioning to soft
or solid foods around the six-month mark, too many are introduced to the wrong
kind of diet, according to the report. As children grow older, their exposure
to unhealthy food becomes alarming, driven largely by inappropriate marketing
and advertising, the abundance of ultra-processed foods in cities but also in
remote areas, and increasing access to fast food and highly sweetened
beverages.
The report also notes that
climate-related disasters cause severe food crises. Drought, for example, is
responsible for 80 per cent of damage and losses in agriculture globally,
dramatically altering what food is available to children and families, as well
as the quality and price of that food; Nigeria is also affected by climate change.
To address the growing
malnutrition crisis in all its forms, UNICEF is issuing an urgent appeal to
government, the private sector, donors, parents, families and businesses to
help children grow healthy by:
- Investing more
resources in interventions aimed at preventing malnutrition among young
children and supporting treatment when prevention fails.
- Supporting nursing mothers to
adequately feed and care for their children.
- Empowering families, children and
young people to demand nutritious food, including by improving nutrition
education and using proven legislation – such as sugar taxes – to reduce
demand for unhealthy foods.
- Driving food suppliers to do the
right thing for children, by incentivizing the provision of healthy,
convenient and affordable foods.
- Building healthy food environments
for children and adolescents by using proven approaches, such as accurate
and easy-to-understand labelling and stronger controls on the marketing of
unhealthy foods.
- Mobilizing supportive systems – health, water and sanitation, education and social protection – to scale up nutrition results for all children.
- Collecting, analyzing and using
good-quality data and evidence to guide action and track progress.
