ISLAMABAD, May 2: The World Bank in its “Country Partnership Strategy Progress Report for 2010-14” has said that Pakistan has a very high rate of child malnutrition with world’s highest levels of vitamin and mineral deficiencies among women and children.
Current levels of malnutrition and its impact on growth and height in Pakistan remain serious, the bank’s report said.
The report revealed that wasting (weight ratio to height) is an acute indicator for malnutrition (typically measured in emergency and famine situations) and the international threshold for declaring a “nutrition emergency” was 15 percent.
However, wasting level in young children (less than one year) in Pakistan is 25 per cent. There are no significant differences between malnutrition levels for girls and boys.
The report said that 44 per cent of children under the age of five are stunted (retard in growth) and 32 per cent are underweight.
The bank’s report said that maternal malnutrition was also a significant problem as 15 per cent of women of reproductive age had chronic energy deficiency, 21 per cent were overweight and 9.5 per cent of them are obese indicating a double burden of under-and over-nutrition.
Pediatrics Professor at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) Prof Mahmood Jamal when asked to comment over the World Bank’s report said: “Pakistan has a number of health related problems for maternal and newborn because of chronic malnutrition.”
Prof Jamal explained that chronic malnutrition affected the body weight and height.
“The chronic nutrition issue will first affect children’s weight and in the later part height,” said Prof Jamal, also the executive director of Pims.
In Pakistan, he said, lack of awareness among the mothers about breastfeeding was also a factor for malnutrition among the newborn.
“When a mother stops breastfeeding, it affects the nutrition circle of the child and leads to repeated infections since you put the newborn on watery fluids,” asserted Prof Jamal.
He said among the extreme strata of poor households lack of balanced diet always affected the health of both the mother and the babies.
However, the World Bank said that there was a broad consensus globally on the “Scaling Up Nutrition” (SUN), framework that calls for a focus on the first 1,000 days of life, from conception to the first 24 months of child’s life, because that is when the most of the damage to cognitive ability and growth occurs and much of the damage is irreversible.
The SUN framework outlines a set of well-proven “direct nutrition interventions” as well as broader multi-sectoral approach and action on both is urgent.
The World Bank report added that since investments in nutrition had been very low but improving nutrition contributed to productivity, economic development and poverty reduction by improving physical work capacity, cognitive development, school performance and health by reducing disease and mortality.