By IJEOMA UKAZU
Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days from the conception of a child to two years of age results in permanent damage.
Part of the damage caused by malnutrition in children results in impaired brain development and lower Intelligent Quotient, IQ. Certain types of nutritional deficiency clearly impair brain development, like Severe Acute Malnutrition, SAM, chronic undernutrition, iron deficiency, and iodine deficiency.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, an estimated two million children in Nigeria suffer from severe acute malnutrition, but only two out of every 10 children affected are currently reached with treatment.
The UN agency said Nigeria has the second-highest burden of stunted children in the world, with a national prevalence rate of 32 percent of children under five.
Nutrition experts worry that this situation would limit child development, performance, and participation which are part of the recommendation under the Sustainable Development Goals for the fulfillment of children’s rights.
To boost mental development during pregnancy, a study released from Harvard Medical School, said the more fish women ate during the second trimester, the higher their babies scored on a mental-development test at six months of age.
Speaking during a two-day media dialogue on child malnutrition organises by UNICEF in collaboration with the Child Rights Bureau, Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, UNICEF Nutrition Officer, Nkeiru Enwelum said other consequences of poor nutrition could lead to premature death; lost productivity, and increased healthcare costs.
“Risk of diabetes; cancer; stroke; hypertension and non-communicable diseases, low birth weight, weakened immune system leading to increased risk of infectious diseases.”
Prevention is the best buy of malnutrition, she revealed, adding that it cost only 15 USD (6,000) to prevent malnutrition through the delivery of high-impact nutrition interventions.
According to the UNICEF Nutrition Officer, “It cost about 120 USD ( approximately 60,000) to treat malnutrition through Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (8 times the cost of prevention).
Enwelum warns that failure to prevent and treat malnutrition can result in: Long term cognitive, growth impacts, loss of income for households up to 15 percent Gross Domestic Product, GDP which is a loss for Nigeria as well as increased morbidity and potential death.
Under the forms of malnutrition in children, she states that they include: wasting (low weight for height), stunting (low height for age), underweight (low weight for age), and micronutrient deficiencies which are often referred to as hidden hunger.”
It also includes: iron deficiency which causes anaemia and tiredness/weakness, vitamin A deficiency which causes a type of blindness and calcium deficiency that causes weak bones.
While highlighting some of the benefits of good nutrition, UNICEF Nutrition Officer said that, it improves school completion by one year, it raises adult wages by 5 to 50 percent, and children who escape stunting are 33 percent more likely to escape poverty as adults’ earnings.
On the economy, she said “Reduction in stunting can increase the Gross Domestic Product, GDP by 4 to 11 percent in Asia and Africa. For health, -3.3 million child deaths annually attributed to malnutrition, 45 of the total number of deaths.”
To improve child nutrition, she suggests that government should target Infant and Young Child Feeding, maternal and adolescent nutrition, and social and behavioural change.
Also speaking at the event, a lecturer of Mass Communication at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu, Dr. Chidi Ezinwa said that the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, cannot be realized without the fulfillment of the Rights of children.
Ezinwa adds that these Rights of the child are hinged on four baskets namely: Survival Rights, Protection Rights, Participation Rights, and Development Rights.
And in all of these Rights, the expert, said “Children are not just objects who belong to their parents and for whom decisions are made, or adults in training. Rather, they are human beings and individuals with their own rights.
“Childhood is separate from adulthood and lasts until 18 years. It is a special, protected time, in which children must be allowed to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity.”