The issue of malnutrition makes feeding the world decidedly more complicated than boosting the amount of grain farmers grow or the number of calories in people’s diets.
- Undernutrition affects nearly 800 million people, accounting for approximately 12 per cent of deaths worldwide. In developing countries, 60 per cent of deaths in the under-five age group are linked with low weight.
- Children who are deprived of an adequate diet in utero and during their first 1,000 days are compromised physically and intellectually for life. Stunting, when a child’s height is low for his or her age and wasting, when weight is too low for a child’s height, are both indicators of chronic undernutrition. According to an FAO report, adult productivity losses in South Asia due to the combined effect of stunting, iodine deficiency and iron deficiency are equivalent to two to four per cent of GDP every year.
- Two billion people globally suffer from micronutrient deficiencies.
- At the other end of the spectrum however, is overnutrition, a phenomenon that is escalating rapidly in both developed and developing economies. While the issue hasn’t received as much attention because of the “more compelling problems at the other end of the scale,” it is now surfacing as a serious threat to human health and the economy. Governments in some middle-income countries, including China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico face the double burden of famine and obesity.
- Worldwide obesity rates have more than doubled since 1980. There are now an estimated 2.458 billion adults over the age of 20 characterized as overweight or obese. The number of undernourished in the world is placed at 805 million. That means there are now three times more people in the world who are overweight than undernourished.
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