World Nutrition Situation : Key Points

 Low birthweight: 30% of all babies born at term in South Asia have low birthweights, with rates of 14% in SubSaharan Africa, 15% in the Middle East and North Africa, 10% in Latin American and the Caribbean and 8% in East Asia and the Pacific.  Maternal underweight: Of 10 African countries with trend data, only three show decline in the rate of severe maternal malnutrition (BMI less than 16).  For SubSaharan Africa, the prevalence of preschool underweight is increasing and will continue to do so unless strategic moves to improve the situation are implemented. Steady progress is being made in SouthCentral Asia. Preschool stunting shows similar patterns.  The locus of preschool malnutrition is steadily shifting from Asia to Africa, although the majority of the worlds malnourished children still live in Asia.  The prevalence and numbers of wasted (low weightforheight) preschoolers are projected to increase in every African region.  Asia is making good progress towards the MDG target of halving child underweight from 1990 to 2015.  However, much of this progressbut not allis driven by improvements in China.  The preschool malnutrition trends in Africa reflect the deteriorating situation in many SubSaharan  African countries, where the poverty rate has increased, HIV/AIDS has devastating impacts, conflict persists, and gains in agricultural productivity as a key driver of overall economic growth remain elusive.  The SubSaharan Africa child malnutrition picture is not all bleak. Some countries show improvement under difficult circumstances (for example, Nigeria, Niger, Angola, Ghana, Malawi, Madagascar and Tanzania). More analysis is needed on these positive trends in Africa.  Food insecurity: As measured by FAO, Central Africa, the Near East and Central America are posting the largest increases in the number of food insecure individuals. China and the Caribbean are showing the largest declines in the number of food insecure.  Diet composition: China is experiencing the most rapid and largest increase in the share of fats in the food supply, followed by the rest of Asia.  Malnutrition, mortality and morbidity: (a) malnutrition is the largest contributor to disease in the world, (b) childhood and maternal underweight alone are responsible for 138 million disability adjusted life years (DALYs) lost or 9.5% of the global burden of disease, (c) in low mortality developing countries, dietrelated risk factors for chronic disease are responsible for a large share of the burden of disease.  Nearly two billion people (35.2%) worldwide have inadequate iodine nutrition.  Vitamin A: Extrapolations from the best available data suggest that 140 million preschoolers and more than 7 million pregnant women suffer from vitamin A deficiency every year.  Iron deficiency anemia among pregnant women is associated with an estimated 111,000 maternal each year.

Nutrition and wellness

As stated by the World Health Organization and Food & Agriculture Organization, changes in the diet in the second half of the 20th century have seen 'traditional, more plant-based diets replaced by high-fat, energy-dense diets with a substantial content of animal foods'. This, they conclude, has played a 'key role' in the upsurge in diet-related preventable diseases, the so-called 'diseases of affluence'. One study has identified meat, dairy foods, eggs and table fats and oil as contributing 63% of the total fat, 77% of the saturated fat and 100% of the cholesterol (found in animal foods only) by Americans. This raises both health and economic concerns: poor nutrition destabilizes a nation's health care system. The overweight and obese in the Netherlands visit their physicians 20% and 40% more, respectively, than people of healthy weight and obese people are 2.5 times more likely to require drugs prescribed for cardiovascular and circulation disorders.

Malnutrition in the world

Malnutrition is an imbalance - a deficiency or an excess - in a person's intake of nutrients and other dietary elements needed for healthy living. Malnutrition can manifest itself as hunger (or undernutrition), deficiency in vitamins or minerals, or overfeeding. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that fully half of the human family, some 3 billion people, suffer from malnutrition of one kind or another. One out of five people in the developing world suffers from the worst of the variants of malnutrition - hunger. In developing countries, most poor people who eat properly consume little or no animal products, yet their diet - largely grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits - meets all nutritional requirements. The nutritional requirements of the 2-3 billion people now living on $2 a day or less, plus the additional 2 billion people expected to populate the world in the next 20 years, can only be met through an efficient traditional diet. Animal products are among the least efficient food sources available. Moreover, because of the "westernization" of diet, in some developing nations, such as China or Brazil, the rate of overfed people is more or less the same as that of underfed ones.

There were 925 million malnourished people in the world in 2010, an increase of 80 million since 1990, despite the fact that the world already produces enough food to feed everyone - 6 billion people - and could feed the double - 12 billion people. Year 1990 1995 2005 2008

Malnourished people in the world (millions) 843

788

848

923

Year

1970 1980 1990 2005 2007

Percentage of people in the developing world who are malnourished

37 % 28 % 20 % 16 % 17 %

Percentage of population affected by undernutrition by country, according to United Nations statistics. Number of undernourished people (million) in 2001-2003, according to the FAO, the following countries had 5 million or more undernourished people: Country Number of Undernourished (million)

India

217.05

China

154.0

Bangladesh

43.45

Democratic Republic of Congo 37.0

Pakistan

35.2

Ethiopia

31.5

Tanzania

16.1

Philippines

15.2

Brazil

14.4

Indonesia

13.8

Vietnam

13.8

Thailand

13.4

Nigeria

11.5

Kenya

9.7

Sudan

8.8

Mozambique

8.3

North Korea

7.9

Yemen

7.1

Madagascar

7.1

Colombia

5.9

Zimbabwe

5.7

Mexico

5.1

Zambia

5.1

Angola

5.0

Middle East
Malnutrition rates in Iraq had risen from 19% before the US-led invasion to a national average of 28% four years later.

South Asia
According to the Global Hunger Index, South Asia has the highest child malnutrition rate of world's regions. India contributes to about 5.6 million child deaths every year, more than half the world's total. The 2006 report mentioned that "the low status of women in South Asian countries and their lack of nutritional knowledge are important determinants of high prevalence of underweight children in the region" and was concerned that South Asia has "inadequate feeding and caring practices for young children".[ Half of children in India are underweight, one of the highest rates in the world and nearly double the rate of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity in Rural America

National studies have found that obesity is more prevalent for rural adults than urban adults, although there is variation across rural America in terms of the severity of the problem. In 2003, a national sample showed that 16.5 percent of rural children were obese compared to 14.4 percent of urban children. The rural South had the highest levels of overweight (34.5%) and obese (19.5%) children. A 2004 national study of adults found that three out of five respondents were physically inactive, with rural adults being slightly more likely to be physically inactive than urban adults. Forty-eight percent of rural children (ages 10-17) report spending at least two hours per day with electronic entertainment media, which is slightly higher than the 47 percent of urban children reporting the behavior.

Malnutrition in Latin America

Hunger and malnutrition affect about 53 million of people from Latin America and the Caribbean. Almost 9 million of children under five suffer from malnutrition. Of the countries in the region, Guatemala is the country with the highest malnourished children with (49%), followed by Honduras (29%) and Bolivia (27%).

Malnutrition in Third World Countries

Nutrition in the Philippines

The Survey found the proportion of households with per capita dietary intake lower than 100 percent dietary energy requirement decreasing from 69.4 percent in 1993 to 56.9 percent in 2003, or an annual rate of reduction of 1.25 percent. On the other hand, the prevalence of underweight preschool children also declined from 30.6 percent in 2001 to 26.9 percent in 2003. This further declined to 24.6 percent in 2005. However, data reveals that wide disparities exist across regions ranging from a low of 16.2 percent for the National Capital Region (NCR) and a high of 38 percent for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).