Malnutrition and African Children

Nearly two in five children in Africa – 60 million in total – are chronically malnourished It would cost little more than $10 billion per year to protect
90 per cent of the world’s most vulnerable children from
hunger.
Chronic malnutrition fails to capture headlines, but is no less
devastating for that, says Stefan Simanowitz .
‘When you arrive in a village, everything may seem normal at first but
then you start to notice things,’ explains Assumpta Ndumi. ‘It is
lunchtime but there is no food on the fire. There are children in the
village but no laughter or play. These are some of the signs of chronic
malnutrition.’ For Assumpta, Save the Children’s nutrition adviser for
East Africa, chronic malnutrition is a problem every bit as serious as
acute malnutrition, even if it seldom captures the headlines. ‘In Kenya
last year, the acute malnutrition that followed the drought was widely
reported, but even before the rains failed there was a hidden hunger
and children were dying because of it,’ she explains.
Assumpta has witnessed firsthand the situation faced by children in
Ethiopia, South Sudan, Darfur and Kenya. ‘Many families eat just one
meal day, but it is often the quality rather than the quantity of the
food that they eat that leaves them dangerously weak,’ she says,
pointing to reliance on staples such as maize and cassava, which have
low nutritional value, as well as the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables.
But she has also seen how simple, low-cost interventions can have a
significant positive impact, transforming lives and preventing
unnecessary deaths. According to A Life Free From Hunger , a new
report by Save the Children, nearly two in five children in Africa – 60
million in total – are chronically malnourished. The report argues that
malnutrition is the underlying cause of one third of child deaths
worldwide, although it may not appear on their death certificates.
Secondary illnesses such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria, rather
than chronic hunger, are usually put down as the cause of death.
Pressing concerns
As well as causing fatalities, chronic malnutrition is having a
devastating impact on children’s development. Without the necessary
protein, vitamins and minerals, children’s bodies and brains do not
develop properly. In Niger, for example, recent World Health
Organization research shows the average two-and-a-half-year-old will
be more than 8 centimetres shorter than a well-nourished child, and a
2011 UNICEF study found that one in three children in Zimbabwe
suffers from chronic malnutrition.
Malnourished children
often suffer from
diminished IQs, and if they
survive to adulthood are more likely to suffer from heart disease,
diabetes and renal damage as well as being far less productive
members of society.
Despite a significant global reduction in child deaths, progress on
tackling chronic malnutrition has been painfully slow. While over the
past 20 years the number of deaths from tuberculosis fell 40 per cent
globally and deaths from malaria fell by over 30 per cent in Africa,
levels of stunting across the continent have dropped by just 1 per cent
over the same period. There are now growing fears that a
combination of trends – including rising food prices, climate change
and demographic shifts – could reverse even this modest gain.
In a recent survey, also by Save the Children, half of families polled in
Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, India and Bangladesh said they were forced to
cut back on food last year. The poll also found that 1 in 6 parents
asked their children to skip school in order to work to help pay for
the families’ food. In Nigeria, a quarter of all parents surveyed said
their children sometimes or often go without food for an entire day,
and 94 per cent pointed to rising food prices as their most
pressing concern.
According to Assumpta, tackling chronic malnutrition is neither
difficult nor expensive. ‘I have seen how encouraging breastfeeding
and fortifying basic foods with essential minerals or vitamins can have
an immediate and dramatic impact on children’s health,’ she says.
Back in 2008, the Lancet medical journal identified an affordable
package of 13 direct interventions – including vitamin A and zinc
supplements, iodized salt, and the promotion of healthy behaviour
such as breastfeeding – that were proven to have an impact on the
nutrition and health of children and mothers. It is estimated that it
would cost little more than $10 billion per year to implement this
package and help protect 90 per cent of the world’s most vulnerable
children from hunger.