Stunting or chronic undernutrition is impaired growth in children under five years of age due to limited access to food, health, and care.
Wasting or acute malnutrition is attributed to the children who are thin for their height because of acute food shortages and disease.
According to the Global Nutrition Report 2018 – 150.8 million children across the world are stunted; 50.5 million are wasted; and 38.3 million are overweight. In addition, about 20 million babies are born of low birth weight every year.
No less than 15.95 million children are affected by twin-burden, stunting and wasting – elevating the risk of child mortality. At the same time, 8.23 million children are encountered by another dual-effect of stunting and overweight.
Even though, stunting has declined in Asia from 38.1% in 2000 to 23.2% in 2017; still South Asia has the largest number of stunted children – 38.9%. WHO says that as of October 2018, 55% of stunted children globally are living in Asia and 39% are living in Africa.
Moreover, out of total of 50.5 million wasted children, more than half or 26.9 million children live in South Asia. According to WHO, a child that is wasted is 11 time more likely to die than a healthy child whereas wasting is currently killing 2 million children annually.
The study found that India as the country with the largest number of stunted children around the world – 46.6 million children – accounting for one third or close to 31% of global stunted children below the age of 5 years.
Nigeria (13.9 million) and Pakistan (10.7 million) are the next two countries, which are housing the largest stunted children. India (25.5 million), Nigeria (3.4 million), and Indonesia (3.3 million) are also the home of wasted children.
More than one-fifth of all overweight children are located in Ukraine, Albania, Libya, and Montenegro. Countries such as China, Indonesia, India, Egypt, the United States, Brazil, and Pakistan also host more than a million overweight children.
The paper further noted that anemia – deficiency in the number and quality of red blood cells or lower hemoglobin – prevails in one third of all the teenage girls and women under the reproductive age. Millions of women are still underweight.
While, the anemia problem in girls and women aged 15 to 49 years seems intractable at 32.8%, no country is on a track to achieve the anemia target, it said. Instead, 41% of the countries with high rate of anemia have no anemia target.
Only 5 countries are on track for 4 targets, 10 for 3 targets, and 44 for 1 target – out of 9 targets such as child overweight, child stunting, child wasting, exclusive breastfeeding, diabetes among women, diabetes among men, anemia in women of reproductive age, obesity among women, and obesity among men.
Outrageously, 100 out of 194 countries assessed including – the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and UAE – are on track for 0 targets.
As much as 41 countries face significant multiple forms of malnutrition termed as ‘Triple Burden’ – childhood stunting, anemia (in adult women), and overweight (in adult women). Pakistan and India coexists in 26 countries with stunting and anemia while 54 countries are burdened by anemia and overweight.
In non-communicable diseases (NCDs), an alarming 422 million people are suffering from diabetes and 1.1 billion people have blood pressure. Shockingly, NCDs were responsible for 41 million deaths (71%) of total 57 million deaths in world in 2016.
Global Nutrition Targets 2025 of World Health Organization (WHO) aims at reduction of 40% stunting in children, 50% reduction in anemia, 30% reduction in low birth weight, freezing childhood overweight, at least 50% increase in the rate extensive breastfeeding, and maintain or 5% reduction in childhood wasting.
UN estimates that only $30 billion can eradicate hunger from the world and another $175 billion could end the extreme poverty from the entire planet in 20-years; the 2,043 richest holding $7.6 trillion in net wealth should come up to save our next generations.