By; MATTHEW UKACHUNWA, Lagos
In Nigeria, one out of every three children is stunted, and one of every 10 children is wasted.
As a result, close to 17 million Nigerian children are undernourished (stunting and/or wasting), giving the country the highest burden of malnutrition in Africa and the second highest in the world.
The statistics was disclosed by a new United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) study released ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit this week.
The report is named: “Fed to Fail? The Crisis of Children’s Diets in Early Life.”
According to UNICEF Nigeria, “Nigeria is off track to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG2): Zero Hunger by 2030. To change this trajectory, the time to act is now to reimagine not just food, but health and protection systems.”
The international authority on children’s well-being said that children under the age of two are most vulnerable to allow forms of malnutrition – stunting, wasting (low weight for height), micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity – as a result of poor diets, due to their greater need for essential nutrients per kilogram of body weight than at any other time in life.
“Globally, UNICEF estimates that more than half of children under the age of 5 with wasting – around 23 million children – are younger than 2 years of age, while the prevalence of stunting increases rapidly between 6 months and two years, as children’s diets fail to keep pace with their growing nutritional needs,” the UN agency stated.
To deliver nutritious, safe, and affordable diets to every child year-round, the report calls for governments, donors, civil society organizations and development actors to work hand-in-hand to transform food, health and social protection systems , UNICEF stated.
It added that increasing the availability and affordability of nutritious foods – including fruits, vegetables, eggs, fish meat and fortified foods – by incentivizing their production, distribution and retailing has become essential. It advised governments toimplement national standards and legislation to protect young children from unhealthy processed and ultra-processed foods and beverages, and to end harmful marketing practices targeting children and families.
UNICEF advised that increasing the desirability of nutritious and safe foods through multiple communication channels including digital media to reach parents and children with easy to understand, coherent information has to be observed.
“We have reached a crucial tipping point,” UNICEF chief, Rushnan Murtaza, said. “Only by joining hands with partners, government and relevant stakeholders, can we transform the Nigerian food system and provide access to diverse, nutritious, safe and affordable diets for every Nigerian child. The upcoming Food Systems Summit provides us the opportunity to reimagine food systems that create a fundamental shift from feeding people to nourishing them. We must apply these learnings to Nigeria, so that we can secure a healthy future for our children.”
