2023-04-25 19:00:51
- Worldwide, pediatric malnutrition affects many children under the age of 5: with 149 million stunted, 45 million underweight, and 39 million overweight and obese.
- Malnutrition can have lifelong consequences, and nutrition plays a critical role in preventing this problem.
- Diabetes affects 422 million people worldwide and heart disease is the leading cause of death on the planet.
Food is a fundamental part of everyone’s life. Its role goes beyond offering all the nutrients that are needed but has a direct relationship with health. For the same reason, if from the first years of life the pediatric malnutrition there is a high risk of developing multiple diseases and conditions both in childhood and adulthood.
Children need adequate nutrition to support healthy growth and development, especially in the early years of their lives. When they do not have access to a complete diet, it can lead to a health problem such as malnutrition and it can have consequences in different spheres.
The impact of malnutrition on children
The malnutrition It can have different forms of presentation: wasting (low weight for height), stunting (low height for age), underweight (low weight for age), or overweight and obesity (above healthy weight for height). The common denominator of these forms is that children do not receive the adequate amount of nutrients they need to be healthy.
Worldwide, malnutrition affects many children under 5 years of age: with 149 million are stunted, 45 million are underweight, and 39 million are overweight and obese. Malnutrition has a significant impact on the health of children.
Chronic malnutrition can lead to stunting, for example: it can have long-term effects on a child not reaching their full growth potential or it can irreversibly damage their cognitive development and, as a result, negatively affect their academic performance. Ultimately, it could have long-term effects on job prospects and future economic stability.
On the other side of the spectrum, being overweight or obese can increase the risk of diet-related noncommunicable diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. Chronic diseases have a significant global impact. In fact, diabetes affects 422 million people worldwide and heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.
In this regard, the Dr. Oscar Quintero, Chief Medical Officer at Abbott, explains that “if left untreated or uncontrolled, these chronic diseases can put people at risk of health complications, from heart attacks to strokes, and can even lead to death.”
Factors contributing to malnutrition
Malnutrition can be motivated by social determinants of health, including poverty or economic instability. When families are struggling financially, it can lead to food insecurity and a lack of access to healthy foods or diversity in food choices.
Food insecurity has had a significant impact. It is estimated that almost 690 million people worldwide went hungry in 2019 and another 83 million could become food insecure due to the pandemic.
In addition, around the world there are still families that have limited access to medical services, which may be caused by economic instability or because they live in a remote community. And it is that, limited access to medical care can make it difficult to identify and treat malnutrition in children.
Parents may not know the importance of providing a variety of foods in the diet or how to balance carbohydrates, protein, and fat so that their children have the nutrition they need for health and growth. Some may struggle with “picky eater” or fussy children.
Picky or picky eating behaviors such as reluctance to try new foods or picky eating disorder, which is the inability or unwillingness to eat certain types of foods, can be common problems among children and can lead them to eat more high-calorie foods. of low nutritional value.
Providing nutrition education to children and parents is key to preventing and treating malnutrition, both undernutrition and overnutrition.
Approaches to fight malnutrition
The fight against malnutrition begins with early detection of children who are malnourished or at risk. If children with this problem are identified, they may receive nutritional intervention to improve health.
Collaboration between communities, organizations and governments that focus on early identification and intervention for malnutrition and nutrition education for children and their parents are important to address this problem.
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