Nutrition Facts
Child Malnutrition
- One child dies every six seconds from hunger and related causes according to UNICEF. Undernutrition is responsible for more than half of the approximately 10 million deaths that occur in children under five each year in developing countries.
- Nearly 150 million children under age five in the developing world are underweight for their age. Two thirds of these children live in Asia, and just over one quarter live in Africa.
- About 178 million children under five are stunted (low height for age) as a result of insufficient food, poor diet and diseases according to WHO.
- An estimated 55 million children, or 10 percent of the world’s children, are wasted. Wasting is a severe form of malnutrition and demands emergency nutritional interventions. According to WHO, about 1.5 million children die each year due to wasting.
- Inadequate breastfeeding practices, especially non-exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life, cause 1.4 million deaths and 10 percent of the disease burden in children under five years old.
Economic Cost
- Countries may lose two to three percent of their GDP as a result of iron, iodine and zinc deficiencies.
- In China, vitamin and mineral deficiencies represent an annual GDP loss of up to US$ 5 billion according to the World Bank.
- In May 2008 the Copenhagen Consensus, a panel of economists including Nobel Laureates, determined that providing micronutrients in the form of iodized salt, vitamin A capsules and iron-fortified flour for 80 percent of the world’s malnourished would cost US$ 347 million a year. The group calculated that the investment would yield US$ 5 billion from avoided deaths, improved earnings and reduced healthcare spending.
Hunger
- 25,000 people die every day from hunger and related causes.
- Nearly one billion people in developing countries do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union combined.
- The number of undernourished people in the world increased by 75 million in 2007, largely due to higher food prices.
- 65 percent of the world's hungry live in seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
