"Children are presumably the future of a country. But when an estimate of over 7.5 million children under the age of five years die from malnutrition and mostly preventable diseases, each year that future becomes distorted. In this report, Ruth Olurounbi examines the high cost of malnutrition to a nation and how it can be prevented.
The United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) has said that nearly one in four people, an estimate of 1.3 billion, live on less than $1 per day and that about 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) has it that one in 12 people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of five years, while adding that 3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2 per day.
In an article, 'Hunger in Global Economy', Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40 per cent of hungry people and the remaining found in Latin America and other parts of the world.
According to the most recent estimate, malnutrition affects 32.5 per cent of children in developing countries. Geographically, more than 70 per cent of malnourished children live in Asia, 26 per cent in Africa and four per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean. In many cases, their plight began even before birth with a malnourished mother.
Under-nutrition among pregnant women in developing countries leads to one out of six infants born with low birth weight. Malnutrition also causes learning disabilities, mental retardation, poor health, blindness and premature death, research have also found, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
The organisation said malnutrition is by far the largest contributor to child mortality globally, currently present in half of all cases. Underweight births and inter-uterine growth restrictions are responsible for about 2.2 million child deaths annually in the world, while noting that deficiencies in vitamin A or zinc cause 1 million deaths each year.
It added that malnutrition during childhood usually results in worse health implications and lower educational achievements during adulthood. Malnourished children tend to become adults who have smaller babies, it reiterated.
Globally, as well as in developed, industrialised countries, some groups of people are at highest risk of malnutrition and they include the elderly people, poor people, people with chronic eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia nervosa, and children.
According to Hunger Notes, in its 2012 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics, children are the most visible victims of under-nutrition. It said children who are poorly nourished suffer up to 160 days of illness each year, adding that “poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year.
'Under-nutrition magnifies the effect of every disease, including measles and malaria. The estimated proportions of deaths in which under-nutrition is an underlying cause are roughly similar for diarrhoea (61 per cent), malaria (57 per cent), pneumonia (52 per cent), and measles (45 per cent).'
UNICEF also reported that the number of chronically undernourished, or stunted children around the world has risen to nearly 200 million, and that 130 million children are underweight. And, as the Lancet Journal puts it, chronic undernutrition in the first two years of life leads to irreversible damage in adult life, therefore, urging that 'addressing nutrition in this critical window of opportunity is vital to prevent irreversible impairments in physical growth and cognitive development.'
Medical experts say that there are two basic types of malnutrition. The first being protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) – the lack of enough protein (from meat and other sources) and food that provides energy (measured in calories) which all of the basic food groups provide.
'The second type of malnutrition which is also very important, is micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) deficiency,' Dr Akinsola Abdul-Azeez, a food nutritionist in Ibadan said.
Experts have categorised PEM as the most lethal form of malnutrition/hunger. People with PEM, they say, basically lacks calories and protein, which are vital to the development of a child.
According to Dr Bolaji Davies, the medical director of Ebun Memorial Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State, a child can be classified as malnourished if he lacks micronutrients in the body.
WHO gave Vitamin A, iron and iodine deficiencies as the major catalyst to malnutrition. Vitamin A deficiency, Dr Femi Adeolu, a dietician in Lagos, said, can cause night blindness and it reduces the body’s resistance to disease. He therefore urged that parents should ensure that their children be given proper nutrition that contains Vitamin A because its deficiency can also cause growth retardation.
The WHO said by estimates, between 250,000 and 500, 000 Vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight.
The principal cause of iron deficiency is anaemia, Dr Davies has said. UNICEF has also estimated that two billion people—over 30 per cent of the world’s population—are anaemic, mainly due to iron deficiency, and, in developing countries, frequently exacerbated by malaria and worm infections.
According to WHO, health consequences of this deficiency in children include premature birth, low birth weight, infections, and elevated risk of death. Later on, physical and cognitive developments are impaired, resulting in lowered school performance. For pregnant women, anaemia contributes to 20 per cent of all maternal deaths, it also said.
Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) jeopardise children´s mental health, and their lives too, experts have said. They added that serious iodine deficiency during pregnancy may result in stillbirths, abortions and congenital abnormalities such as cretinism, a grave, irreversible form of mental retardation that affects people living in iodine-deficient areas of Africa and Asia. WHO said that IDD also causes mental impairment that lowers intellectual prowess at home, at school, and at work, stating that IDD affects over 740 million people, 13 per cent of the world’s population.
To prevent malnutrition, experts have said that it is imperative to stay away from poor diet because if a person does not eat enough food, or if what they eat does not provide them with the nutrients required for good health, they will suffer from malnutrition.
Alcoholics have also been advised to desist from intake of alcohol or should seek help if they cannot quit on their own. 'Individuals who suffer from alcoholism can develop gastritis, or pancreas damage. These problems also seriously undermine the body's ability to digest food, absorb certain vitamins, and produce hormones which regulate metabolism. Alcohol contains calories, reducing the patient's feeling of hunger, so he/she consequently may not eat enough proper food to supply the body with essential nutrients,' the Hunger Notes have added.
Mothers have been encouraged to breastfeed their babies adequately to prevent malnutrition. Lack of breastfeeding, experts say, leads to malnutrition in infants and children. Another reason for lack of breastfeeding, mainly in the developing world, is that mothers abandon it because they do not know how to get their baby to latch on properly, or suffer pain and discomfort."
http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/your-health/35369-infant-mortality-why-you-should-prevent-malnutrition
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