All the technological,cultural and social advances of the last few decades notwithstanding, society is failing its kids in providing healthy diets. For, at least one in three children under five across the globe are suffering due to poor diets and faulty food system, a latest report of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has said.
The alarming revelation comes just months after a study in the Lancet warned that two-thirds of the 1.04 million deaths in children underfive years in India are still attributable to malnutrition. This accounts for 68.2 per cent of the total under-5 deaths, translating into 706,000 deaths (due to malnutrition).
As per the 'The State of the World's Children 2019: Children, food and nutrition' at least 1 in 3 children under five - or over 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, warns the report.
"Despite all the technological, cultural and social advances of the last few decades, we have lost sight of this most basic fact: If children eat poorly, they live poorly," said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director.
"Millions of children subsist on an unhealthy diet because they simply do not have a better choice. The way we understand and respond to malnutrition needs to change: It is not just about getting children enough to eat; it is above all about getting them the right food to eat. That is our common challenge today."
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.
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, only 42 per cent of children under six months of age are exclusively breastfed and an increasing number of children are fed infant formula. Sales of milk-based formula grew by 72 per cent between 2008 and 2013 in upper middle-income countries such as Brazil, China and Turkey, largely due to inappropriate marketing and weak policies and programmes to protect, promote and support breastfeeding.
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. Worldwide, close to 45 per cent of children between six months and two years of age are not fed any fruits or vegetables. Nearly 60 per cent do not eat any eggs, dairy, fish or meat.
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.
In India too, two-thirds of the 1.04 million deaths in children under five years in India are still attributable to malnutrition. According to a report published in the The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health by the India State-Level Disease Burden malnutrition in children varies 7-fold among the States and is highest in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Assam, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Nagaland and Tripura.
It said malnutrition continue to be the leading risk factor for death in children under five years, and is also the leading risk factor for disease burden for all ages considered together in most States.
