The report is based on an international study of childhood poverty. Researchers from the University of Oxford are leading the “Young Lives” study. They are following the lives of 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam over a 15-year period.
The report notes that the period from when a woman becomes pregnant until a child is two years old is an important time for brain development. But McNair says the effect of malnutrition goes beyond the biology of the brain.
“There is interesting evidence on the stimulus that children receive. So because children who are malnourished look smaller, their parents and their caregivers tend to treat them as if they were younger than they are. And that means they do not get the right stimulus and their brains are not developing as a result of that stimulus.”
The report says childhood malnutrition is also a major threat to the long-term economic growth of many developing countries.
United Nations figures suggest that last year nearly 50 percent of children under five in southern Asia were stunted, too short for their age because of poor nutrition. This was also the case for 40 percent of children under five in sub-Saharan Africa.
Save the Children predicts that malnourished children may, as adults, earn 20 percent less than children who were properly fed. It says this costs the global economy more than $100 billion a year.
McNair says targeting malnutrition now will have major long-term effects. But, currently nutrition programs get just over 0.3 percent of global development spending. Save the Children wants spending on nutrition to more than double to $1 billion a year.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25