Poor diets are leading to alarming levels of child malnutrition worldwide, with millions of children who are stunted, overweight or lacking essential vitamins and nutrients. Overall, one-third of children under 5 aren’t growing well because they aren’t eating well.
UNICEF’s latest report, The State of the World’s Children 2019: Children, food and nutrition: Growing well in a changing world, examines the issue of children, food and nutrition and provides a fresh perspective on this rapidly evolving challenge.
Fast Facts
- 149 million children are stunted, or too short for their age
- 50 million children are wasted, or too thin for their height
- 340 million children – or 1 in 2 – suffer from deficiencies in essential vitamins and nutrients such as vitamin A and iron
- 40 million children are overweight or obese
At the centre of this profound triple burden of malnutrition – undernutrition, hidden hunger and overweight – is a broken food system that fails to provide children with the diets they need to grow healthily.
In addition to new data and analyses of malnutrition in the 21st century, the report outlines recommendations to put children’s rights at the heart of food systems.
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