Nigeria leads malnutrition rate with dire cases in the North
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Nigeria has the worst case of malnutrition in Africa and the second worst in the world in the latest ranking by both the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
A UNICEF report titled, “Fed to Fail? The Crisis of Children’s Diets in Early Life”, published in 2021 placed Nigeria second in the global malnutrition burden with 17 million undernourished children.
One in three children in Nigeria is diminutive and one in 10 children is wasted, the report said, setting the country off track to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 – Zero Hunger by 2030.
“From the 2018 National Demography Health Survey, NDHS, 37 per cent of Nigerian children aged between 0 to 59 months are stunted, seven per cent are wasted (thin for their height); 22 per cent are underweight (thin for their age), and two per cent are overweight (heavy for their height),” the report added.
“According to the NDHS, South-West has less than seven per cent (6.8) of Global Acute malnutrition and moving up North, it is direr with North-West showcasing 57 per cent in stunting.
“Only the South-East fared a little low with 18 per cent of children stunted.”
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Effects of insecurity
Worsening insecurity, especially in the North, has led to the rising pangs of malnutrition among Nigerian children.
Vanguard reports that a woman called Fatimah has an infant boy, Suleiman, who was diagnosed with failure to thrive, a form of malnutrition, at UNICEF centre in Sokoto.
Suleiman weighs 2.7 kg, a weight too low for his age.
“Suleiman became sick after we were sacked from our ancestral home by bandits. We lost our lands, properties and other valuables to bandits and now my son is sick. Bandits attacked our village, Kamitau, about 12 months ago,” Fatimah lamented.
She and other mothers together with their ailing infants at Sabon-Gari Dole Primary Health Centre in Goronyo Council in Sokoto are victims of persistent terrorism as their children are struck with malnutrition.
Experts say the condition of these children may get worse with the recent report by the United Nations showing that 14.5 million Nigerians require urgent assistance to address their nutrition needs.
