Malnutrition In Children

this post is in response to julia's request for topics to debate on.

we are sooo fussy about our food. sometimes it takes us alot of time to decide what ot have for our meals and when we finally do have them, we usually order more than we need and we are not able to finish it. where dos this unfinished food go? why down the drain of course! imagine what the condition of those children must be who have absolutely no food to eat. they are not given the choice of going ot pizza hut or mcdonalds. they cannot even think about wasting food. food is as precious to them as is your new billabong bag to you. why are these children suffering what are the causes of this malnutrition? let me tell you.

CAUSES

malnutrition can be caused by deficiencies of protien, energy and micronutrients (nutrients needed in small amounts). children become malnourished due to illness in combination with in inadequate intake of food. other causes are poor sanitation, poor quality drinking water adn inadequate child and maternal care.

In as many as 35 of the poorest countries, 30-50 per cent of the population may have no access to health services at all.

More than 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and some 2.9 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. The result is the spread of infectious diseases, which in turn are major causes of malnutrition. Each year, diarrhoeal dehydration claims the lives of 2.2 million children under five in developing countries.

Several studies have found that malnourished children who were stimulated verbally and cognitively had higher growth rates than those who were not. That means that children should interact with parents. This will help the children grow emotionally as well. Inadequate care for children and women is an underlying cause of malnutrition only recently recognized in all its harmful ramifications.

The very high rates of child malnutrition and low birthweight throughout much of South Asia are linked to such factors as women's poor access to education and their low levels of participation in paid employment, compared with other regions.

RESULT

malnutrition contributes to over 6 million child deaths a year, 55 per cent of the nearly 12 million deaths among children under five in developing countries. Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.

Malnutrition leads to reduced productivity, hampering economic growth and the effectiveness of investments in health and education, and deepening poverty.

In countries where infant mortality rates are high or moderately high, a bottle-fed baby in a poor community is 14 times more likely to die from diarrhoeal diseases and 4 times more likely to die from pneumonia than a baby that is exclusively breastfed.

WHAT IS BEING DONE?

Over 12,700 hospitals in 114 countries are now baby-friendly, establishing a good start to breastfeeding for millions of babies.

Sixty per cent of all edible salt in the world is now iodized, helping reduce the toll of iodine deficiency disorders. Bolivia is the first and only country to certify that iodine deficiency has been virtually eliminated as a public health problem.

In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programmes in developing countries.

In Mbeya in Tanzania, a project improving health coverage and access to safe water, as well as growth monitoring and promotion, has produced a drop in moderate malnutrition of 11 percentage points. In contrast, malnutrition among children under five in areas not covered by the project actually increased by 7 percentage points.

In Brazil, the rate of malnutrition among children covered by a community-volunteer growth monitoring and promotion programme run by the Child Pastorate is half the national rate.
In a village in Niger, malnutrition rates have fallen by 10 percentage points as a result of a programme that helps women organize to reduce their workloads and enrich family diets with new foods.

Community volunteers in Oman's Al Dakhiliya region are helping reduce child malnutrition through improved care and health activities.

Nutrition promoters in Bangladesh are working in 1,000 community centres to help support breastfeeding and better caring practices for women and children.

Guatemala has brought vitamin A deficiency under control by fortifying sugar with the vitamin. Sugar is also being fortified with vitamin A in parts of Bolivia, Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras and the Philippines.

UNICEF supplied a total of 2.7 billion iron/folate tablets to 122 countries between 1993 and 1996 for distribution among pregnant women to help reduce iron deficiency anaemia and folate deficiency. Wheat flour is being fortified with iron in a number of countries in Latin America and the Middle East.

The nutrition of millions of children around the world has benefited from improvements in health services, particularly the achievement of immunization rates between 80 and 90 per cent in many countries

All this is being done but it is not enough. We are the young generation and it is our responsibility that we make sure that all these procedures remain active and ntroduce more schemes to help all the children out there. You can also help by finding out more info about organisations that are working towards this cause and helping them out.

Here are some websites you may want to check out if you are interested:
www.unicef.org/sowc98
http://www.myplanet.net/stanglaser/
http://www.nourishsomechildren.com/
http://www.food4africa.org.za/

there are many other sites you can find by surfing the net.

next time you waste food, remember the children dying out there.

My ambiton is to go to places where there are children dying due to malnutrition and poor sanitaion and help them out as a docter. I hope I inspired some of you to share my ambition.

-eddy edha-