The Global Nutrition Report 2015 says that more than half the children under the age of five in Pakistan are living an unhealthy life. The report has come at a time when the UN member states plan to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) later this month. Only Kenya is on course for all five World Health Assembly targets on nutrition while Colombia, Ghana, Vanuatu and Vietnam – are on course for four targets. Pakistan is among 20 countries that have met only one target, reported Dawn online citing the nutrition report. The report claimed that many countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nigeria, had only a minority of children who were growing healthily.
It also presented a dismal picture of the global nutrition status saying no country was on track to achieve the global nutrition targets set by the World Health Assembly. A third of the global population is malnourished and the problem exists in every country, the report said.The report highlighted the critical link between climate change and malnutrition and suggested that changing weather conditions were complicating global efforts to end malnutrition. Pakistan, though, falls among the 20 countries that have so far met only one target. The reasons cited for the world’s growing nutrition problem by the report are especially relevant. The report suggests that climate change is changing food production patterns and making access to adequate food more difficult for millions. As a consequence around 160 million children in the world suffer from stunting, or a failure to meet expected height for age, while 150 million are ‘wasted’ – falling below expected weight for age. Surveys carried out in the past have indicated the situation is especially grim in Pakistan with almost half of the country’s children suffering from stunting or wasting. The problem has been given too little attention. The climate change factor adds a new dimension to the difficulties. The report says that presumably due to food availability in India children born between December and April are taller than those born between April and September. Clearly more research needs to be conducted in this area. It would be worth examining if the pattern is in anyway similar in Pakistan. In addition to these problems, the world, including Pakistan, also has the problem of growing adult obesity. One in 12 adults globally now suffers Type-2 diabetes. Pakistan stands among the top five countries in the world for the prevalence of diabetes. As experts in the country have pointed out, the issue needs to be carefully examined. We must do more to ensure that all our people, and especially our children, receive the nutrition they require to grow normally. The Global Nutrition Report suggests that most children in the world are in fact not able to develop at the expected rate. This is a frightening testimony to what we have made our world. Issues of food wastage and also of poor eating practices have come up again and again. Perhaps it is time the nations of the world sat together to consider where things have gone wrong, and also develop strategies to correct them so that we can overcome climate change and other issues which deprive people of adequate food.
pk.shafaqna.com
