ISLAMABAD Pakistan is among the six countries in Asia and 10 countries in the world that contribute most to the global burden of stunting (below normal growth) among children, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) says in a new report.
This burden is also shared with Pakistan in Asia by Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Due to the high prevalence of stunting (48 per cent) in combination with a large population, India alone has an estimated 61 million stunted children, accounting for more than three out of every 10 stunted children in the developing world.
The Unicef report, entitled 'Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Nutrition', notes nutrition problems are often not noticed until they reach a severe level. But mild and moderate under-nutrition are highly prevalent and carry consequences of enormous magnitude, like growth impediment, impaired learning ability and, later in life, low work productivity. None of these conditions is as visible as diseases from which the under-nourished child dies.
According to the most recent estimates, maternal and child under-nutrition contributes to more than one third of child deaths. Undernourished children who survive may become locked in a cycle of recurring illness and faltering growth, with irreversible damage to their development and cognitive abilities.
The Unicef report estimated that stunting affects approximately 195 million children under five years of age in the developing world, or about one in every three. Africa and Asia have high stunting rates - 40 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively - and more than 90 per cent of the world's stunted children live in these two continents.
Poverty, inequity, low maternal education and women's social status are among the underlying factors that need to be taken into consideration and addressed to reduce under-nutrition in a sustained manner.
Since 1990, stunting prevalence in the developing world has declined from 40 per cent to 29 per cent, a relative reduction of 28 per cent. Progress has been particularly notable in Asia, where prevalence dropped from 44 per cent around 1990 to 30 per cent around 2008.
Today, an estimated 129 million children under five years of age in the developing world are underweight - nearly one in four. Ten per cent of children in the developing world are underweight. The prevalence of underweight cases among children is higher in Asia than in Africa, with rates of 27 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively.
Children who suffer from wasting, an illness due to which the child gradually becomes weaker and thinner, face a markedly increased risk of death.
According to the latest available data, 13 per cent of children under five in the developing world are wasted, and five per cent are severely wasted (an estimated 26 million children).
In Pakistan, the prevalence of moderate wasting in children under five is 14 per cent with 3,376,000 cases, while severe wasting accounts for six per cent, the report said.
In developing countries, 16 per cent of infants, or one in six, weigh less than 2.5kg at birth.
In Pakistan and Yemen, for example, where almost one-third of newborns are estimated to be of low birth weight, more than 90 per cent of infants are not weighed at birth.Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are highly prevalent throughout the developing world, the report points out.
In the developing world, less than 40 per cent of infants, less than six months old, receive the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding.
