A third of the world’s nearly 700 million children under five years old are undernourished or overweight and face lifelong health problems as a consequence, according to a grim UN assessment of childhood nutrition released Tuesday.
Another 50 million are afflicted by wasting, a chronic and debilitating thinness also born of poverty. “This triple burden — undernutrition, a lack of crucial micronutrients, obesity — is increasingly found in the same country, sometimes in the same neighbourhood, and often in the same household,” Victor Aguayo, head of UNICEF’s nutrition programme, told AFP.Across all age groups, more than 800 million people in the world are constantly hungry and another two billion are eating too much of the wrong foods, driving epidemics of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
“It’s ‘hidden’ because you don’t notice the impact until it is too late,” Brian Keeley, editor-in-chief of report, told AFP. Cheap, readily available junk food, often marketed directly to kids, has made the problem much worse.Progress in fighting undernourishment will also be hampered by climate change, the report warned.A single degree Celsius of warming since the late-19th century has amplified droughts responsible for more than 80 percent of damage and losses in agriculture.
Alarming.
Tackling the issue of Double burden of malnutrition is not an easy task. All Nation should sit up and necessary agency should draft a final strategy to curb this
And agric minister is saying no hunger in Nigeria
Hope Agric minister read this before he talked that there is no hunger in Nigeria
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