Millions of children suffer from hunger or malnutrition.
At least one-third of children under five, or 200 million young girls and boys, do not eat enough or do not have good quality nutrition. UNICEF says this is due to malnutrition, overweight or being too thin.
At least a third of the world's children under five, or 200 million young girls and boys, do not eat enough or do not have good quality food. UNICEF says they are therefore malnourished, overweight or underweight.
Two-thirds of children between the ages of six months and two years around the world do not have access to adequate nutrition for their physical and mental development, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a report released ahead of World Nutrition Day on October 16.
Experts warn that children's brains do not develop well with poor or inadequate nutrition, and they will have difficulty learning later; while their immune systems become so weak that they succumb to the slightest illness.
“Despite all the technological, cultural and social advances in recent years, we have neglected a fundamental reality: if children are poorly nourished, they will live poorly,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
The UNICEF official warned that the way malnutrition is diagnosed and dealt with must change: "It's not a matter of children eating enough, it's a matter of them being properly nourished."
The UNICEF report lists the various forms of child malnutrition. 50 million children are undernourished and very thin. 40 million children under five are overweight or obese. Another 149 million children are stunted due to nutritional deficiencies, and 340 million children suffer from complications resulting from vitamin or mineral deficiencies.
Nutrition experts criticize, above all, the widespread consumption of fast food, junk food, and carbonated and sweetened beverages among children.
This eating pattern has spread beyond industrialized countries, and UNICEF warns against it. Poor families are increasingly feeding their children cheap, ready-made and low-quality foods. The number of overweight children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 doubled between 2000 and 2016, due to the consumption of these foods and drinks. In 2016, for example, the proportion of German children who were overweight was 26.6 percent, up 37 percent from 1990.
The UNICEF report states that bad eating habits start from the very first day of a baby's life. For example, although breast milk is the best nutrition for babies, only 42 percent of babies under six months are breastfed. Sales of formula milk have also increased significantly in middle-income countries such as Brazil, China and Turkey, and UNICEF attributes this to "inappropriate advertising and marketing" that has led to babies being fed unsuitable, ready-made, factory-made foods after six months.
