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In Context
- Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) in its press brief stated that acute malnutrition is risking 30 million children’s lives.
More about the news
- Global state of Malnutrition:
- According to WHO, Currently, more than 30 million children in the 15 worst-affected countries suffer from wasting — or acute malnutrition.
- 8 million of these children are severely wasted, the deadliest form of undernutrition.
- Causes:
- Conflict, climate shocks, the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 and rising living costs are leaving increasing numbers of children acutely malnourished.
- Meanwhile, critical health, nutrition and other life-saving services are becoming less accessible.
- Impacts:
- The global food crisis is also a health crisis, and a vicious cycle: malnutrition leads to disease, and disease leads to malnutrition.
- Acute malnutrition is a major threat to children’s lives and their long-term health and development, the impacts of which are felt by individuals, their communities and their countries, the WHO added.
UN’s response: Global Action Plan on Child Wasting
- Action Plan:
- In response to the WHO’s report, five UN agencies subsuming WHO are calling for accelerated progress on the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting.
- Agencies:
- These agencies are
- Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
- UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR),
- United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),
- World Food Programme (WFP) and
- World Health Organization (WHO).
- These agencies are
- Aim:
- The action plan aims to prevent, detect and treat acute malnutrition among children in the worst-affected countries:
- Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, the Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.
- The action plan aims to prevent, detect and treat acute malnutrition among children in the worst-affected countries:
- Need of support, action & investment:
- The agencies have called for decisive and timely action to prevent this crisis from becoming a tragedy for the world’s most vulnerable children.
- All agencies urged greater investment in support of a coordinated UN response that will meet the unprecedented needs of this growing crisis before it is too late.
Malnutrition
- About:
- It refers to deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients.
- It is a chronic problem and a longstanding challenge for the public administration of India.
- The term malnutrition addresses 3 broad groups of conditions:
- Undernutrition:
- It includes wasting (low weight-for-height), stunting (low height-for-age) and underweight (low weight-for-age)
- Together, the stunted and wasted children are considered to be underweight, indicating a lack of proper nutritional intake and inadequate care post-childbirth.
- Micronutrient-related malnutrition:
- It includes micronutrient deficiencies (a lack of important vitamins and minerals) or micronutrient excess; and
- Overweight:
- It includes obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers).
- Undernutrition:
Government initiatives to address Malnutrition
- Poshan Abhiyan:
- It is a multi-ministerial convergence mission with the vision to ensure the attainment of malnutrition free India by 2022.
- The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) is implementing POSHAN Abhiyaan.
- Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition (POSHAN) 2.0 scheme:
- It now includes the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, which seeks to work with adolescent girls, pregnant women, nursing mothers and children below three.
- Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS):
- It represents one of the world’s largest and unique programmes for early childhood care and development.
- The beneficiaries under the Scheme are children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers
- The Ministry of Women and Child Development is the implementing agency.
- Mid-Day Meal Scheme:
- The Mid-day Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India designed to better the nutritional standing of school-age children
- It covers all school students studying in Classes 1 to 8 of government schools, government-aided schools, special training centres, including madrasas supported under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan.
- National Food Security Mission:
- It was launched in 2007-08 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
- It focuses on the sustainable increase in the production of targeted crops through area expansion and productivity enhancement.
- National Nutrition Mission:
- It is the government’s flagship programme to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
- Aim:
- To reduce stunting and wasting by 2 percent per year (total 6 per cent until 2022) among children and anemia by 3 percent per year (total 9 per cent until 2022) among children, adolescent girls and pregnant women and lactating mothers.
- The Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal ministry for implementation.
Way ahead
- It is being speculated that this situation is likely to deteriorate even further in 2023.
- Urgent support is needed now in the hardest-hit countries to protect children’s lives and health, including ensuring critical access to healthy foods and nutrition services, especially for women and children.
- Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of existing nutrition investments can increase the impact of available resources on malnutrition.
- Policy initiatives are urgently needed to transform food systems, increase intake of health-promoting foods, and reduce animal-based foods, to ensure diets are healthy and sustainable for people and the planet.
Source: DTE
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