The InterDependent

More than one-third of global childhood deaths are linked to malnutrition, yet by the time the condition becomes evident it may not be reversible. More than one in four children worldwide suffer from this silent assault, and for many it starts before birth, when anemic, malnourished mothers cannot pass on the nutrients needed to nurture fetuses during pregnancy.

The 2010 Global Hunger Index, released recently by the International Food Policy Research Institute, an alliance of 64 governments, intergovernmental organizations and private donors, shows some positive gains over 20 years. The proportion of underweight children under age 5 declined, and the mortality rate in that age group has also been reduced. But hunger and malnutrition in the world remain serious, the institute said.

Two regions, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, still rank worst on the hunger index, as they did in 1990, defined by high undernourishment, the prevalence of underweight children and the under-5 mortality rate. Both areas, despite gains, fall into the index’s “alarming” category, but the causes are not the same, the institute said in its report.

Evan Schneider/UN Photo

Rice being distributed in Gaza by the World Food Program. Despite the overall wealth of the Middle East, pockets of severe malnourishment exist.

In South Asia -- anchored by India, with the largest number of poor people in the world -- “the low nutritional, educational and social status of women” is a major factor. There may be enough food nationally, but it is not getting to the poorest people. In sub-Saharan Africa, “low government effectiveness, conflict, political instability and high rates of HIV-AIDS” are factors in undernourishment and child mortality, the index researchers concluded.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta lists deficiencies in what are known as “micronutrients,” like iron, iodine, vitamin A, folic acid and zinc, as factors in malnutrition and contributors to potentially devastating health and developmental problems.

Iron deficiency, which the CDC says contributes to a quarter of the maternal deaths in developing countries, also “robs more than 2 billion children of their intellectual development,” lowering their IQs. Iodine deficiency is the leading cause of preventable mental retardation and causes brain damage in nearly 18 million babies a year, according to the CDC, which has a micronutrient program to prevent malnutrition.

Children born in extreme poverty to unhealthy mothers begin life with huge handicaps, long before they are old enough to go to school, if there is one. Furthermore, they may become blind from a lack of vitamin A, which also kills about 670,000 children under age 5, the CDC says. The numbers are staggering in any case, but even more so because most of this devastation is preventable.

Raïsa Mirza

In Rwanda, wetlands were drained so that villagers could grow a variety of crops. Sub-Saharan Africa's malnutrition pangs derive from ineffective governments, civil wars and disease.

Unicef, the UN Children’s Fund, also has programs to prevent severe micronutrient deficiencies, along with projects promoting healthy feeding of both mother and child. Without attention to these underlying causes of malnutrition and hunger in women as well as children, a global majority of the world’s youngsters in coming decades will be growing up with irreversible disadvantages, vulnerable to disease and unable to compete with their better-off peers in education and jobs.

Malnutrition is widespread. Even in regions that rank among the healthiest in dietary nutrients, like Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, pockets of severe nutritional deprivation exist. Haiti’s children, especially those displaced from their homes by the earthquake in January and weakened in health, have succumbed too easily to cholera.

Most recently, on Oct.21, Unicef issued an alert for northern Yemen, where there has been civil conflict. In that region, Unicef said, three out of four children in one area were malnourished, about a quarter of them in severe or acute stages. Malnutrition is now the leading underlying cause of death for young children across Yemen.

The Global Hunger Index is one more reminder that if nations have any hope of meeting most of the Millennium Development Goals, the first step to success starts in the family, long before a baby is born.