Improving the nutrition of mothers and children could save many lives at a relatively low cost.
In 2021, 4.7 million children under the age of five died; 2.4 million of those were attributed to child and maternal malnutrition. That means around half of child deaths were linked to nutritional deficiencies.When you think about these deaths, you might imagine a very acute form of hunger: a starving child. While this can happen during famines or in areas with very low levels of food availability, it’s only a small fraction of the total deaths linked to malnutrition.In most cases, children don’t die of malnutrition. They die from conditions that are exacerbated or are triggered by it. In most cases, it’s a risk factor for premature death. Take the example of the risk factor of smoking. People die from lung cancer, but their risk of developing it is significantly increased if they’ve been a smoker.In the chart below, we can see how many child deaths are attributed to different nutritional risk factors.The world is making progress due to improvements in malnutrition and tackling infectious diseases
It’s critical to invest in good nutrition for kids and mothers
If we’re trying to reduce childhood malnutrition, it’s tempting to focus on what kids eat. But this challenge starts with the nutrition of mothers, particularly during pregnancy.Several factors, including genetics, contribute to low birth weight in infants — but the risk tends to be higher when the mother has poor nutrition and dietary deficiencies during pregnancy.4 Without sufficient supplies of nutrients, fetal development is restricted, and babies cannot grow fully. In addition, the IHME estimates that around 34,000 women died from pregnancy-related causes in 2021 as a result of being malnourished.