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297. Joint Report on Child Malnutrition

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The UNICEF, World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank released this month the 2021 edition of the joint global and regional estimates of malnutrition among children under 5 years of age.

The 2021 report uses a new country-level model to generate national, regional, and global estimates of stunting and overweight. In addition, estimates for each year from 2000 to 2020 are newly available. As for consumption, the estimation method is still being improved and this time, as in previous editions, only estimates for the most recent year (2020) are presented. For the first time, country data, the country's share of the global burden, and progress toward the 2030 goal are presented.

According to the report, in 2020 globally, 149.2 million children (22%) under the age of 5 were stunted, 45.4 million (6.7%) were wasted, and 38.9 million (5.7%) were overweight. Although the number of children with stunting is declining rapidly, the rate of decline needs to accelerate further to reach the 2030 target. Overweight is on a gradual upward trend. Most of the malnourished children live in Africa and Asia.

These estimates do not take into account the impact of the new coronavirus pandemic. In addition, the report also suggests that the pandemic is expected to exacerbate all forms of malnutrition due to worsening household incomes, limited access to nutritious food, disruptions in essential nutrition services, and reduced physical activity, especially in vulnerable populations. An update on the global food crisis situation in 2020 provided by the Global Network Against Food Crisis (GNAFC) will be presented here in Pick up soon.

Reference

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. Levels and trends in child malnutrition: key findings of the 2021 edition of the joint child malnutrition estimates. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2021. https://data.unicef.org/resources/jme-report-2021/  Accessed on May 13.

Contributor: SHIRATORI Sakiko (Information and Public Relations Office)

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