Malnutrition is one of the world’s highly overlooked issues. Many still believe that malnutrition is restricted to the African continent, which is the biggest myth this article will bust. If the first image that pops into your mind when you think of malnutrition is a scrawny African kid, this is the article to educate you about our world.
Malnutrition, as the name suggests, is the deficiency of the required nutrients in one’s body. A properly balanced diet should constitute sufficient energy/calorie requirements and also meet our diverse nutritional requirements. Our biology tells us more about our ailments than our body weight and structure.
Another myth associated with malnutrition is that only those without timely meals are malnourished. Malnourishment exists in three main forms: under-nourished, over-nourished, and targeted nourishment.
- Under-Nourished: A person who is not consuming a timely balanced diet
- Over-Nourished: A person consuming more nutrients than needed, they are over-nourished, or obese
- Targeted Under-Nourishment: A person consuming timely food, but lacking a balanced food intake
Malnourishment is less about how much you eat and more about what you eat. To further bust the myth, Africa might be the continent with the highest malnourished population, but the country with the highest malnourished population is, Yemen.
The Double-Burden of Malnourishment is a crisis that almost all countries are facing, trying to end under-nourishment while tackling an increasingly obese population.
Food Security is the availability of food and one’s access to it. Food insecurity is when there’s an infrequent availability and one’s eating habits are disrupted as a result of lack of money and other resources.
9.2% of the world was severely affected by food insecurity, and 1-in-4 are moderately affected by food insecurity in 2018.
As a result of this, many people fail to avail of the basic requirement, food.
Over 1 billion people were undernourished in 1990, 795 million as of 2014. The number soon reaching 821 million by 2017.
Contrary to popular belief, India is one of the highest-ranking countries in the world worst affected by malnutrition amongst children. About 30% of Indian children are underweight, almost twice than in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Over 5% of the Indian population is morbidly obese. Processed, sugar-free, and other un-healthy options have substituted our diets. Organic options have become a thing of luxury. The National capital surpasses every other state and union territory with 45.5% men and 49.8% women obese population (Transgender data not given). While Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan exceed in the undernourished population.
Fad Diets promising quick weight shedding are part of the problem. While you may shed the “few extra pounds,” they leave you with a malnourished body. Omitting fats from our diets does us more harm than good. Take, for instance, potatoes and sugars, high in starch and carbohydrates, are still vital for our body.
Each year, enough food is produced to feed more than 12 billion people. The world population is 7 billion!
A country as a whole very rarely struggles with food insecurity. It is a group or even a marginalized community that struggles with finding proper access. Haddad in their article, “Lifting the Curse: Overcoming Persistent Undernutrition in India” wrote, “A poor capacity to deliver the right services at the right time to the right populations, an inability to respond to citizens’ needs and weak accountability are all features of weak nutrition governance.” While government officials claim that it is a challenge for every country to provide people with access to healthy food.
While it is debatable as to how much the government does or can do, many factors come into play. To name a few, the socio-economic status, region, religion, and relationships.
One strong link to malnutrition in India is domestic violence. Domestic violence brings with it emotional and physical abuse. The dual-abuse affects one’s oxidative stress, hemoglobin blood levels, and produce anemic malnutrition.
Another link is that of religion, scientific studies prove that in India, Hindus and Muslims tend to be more malnourished than those from Christian, Sikh or Jain backgrounds.
Each type of malnutrition brings with it many diseases and high mortality rates. Visible signs of malnutrition and dehydration are most common include, including moon face, dry eyes, periorbital edema, glossitis, enamel mottling, dull-sparse-brittle hair, alopecia, thin and soft nail plates, muscles wasting, calcium-vitamin D-vitamin C deficiencies, and more.
With the ongoing pandemic and the related lockdown, many families have lost their source of income. People are struggling to choose between food and rent. The malnutrition rates have been higher in the last few months than last year. UNICEF’s plan to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 seems unlikely.
Eduindex News 