First 1,000 Days: Battle Against Undernutrition and Stunting

Copyright UNICEF

The burden of stunting exists worldwide. However, most people have never heard of stunting. Stunting is one of the least reported, least recognized and least understood issues facing humanity today. Stunted growth, wasting and being underweight are all consequences of undernutrition. However, stunting affecting 165 million children under five years old (one out of every four.), presents itself as a problem of greater magnitude than wasting or being underweight.

The increased nutritional needs and greater vulnerability of children puts them at the greatest risk of stunting and mortality when they lack access to a diet that meets all their nutrient needs. However, in addition to decreased fetal nutrition during pregnancy and child nutritional deficiencies there are several other factors that cause stunting either directly or indirectly- poor sanitation and hygiene, poverty, teenage pregnancy, maternal dieting, poor health care, poor knowledge and care practices, uterine vascular problems and frequent attacks of infectious disease. Prevalence of undernutrition exists in both developing and industrialized countries but to different degrees and in different forms.

Stunting or low height for age, caused by chronic undernutrition in children, does not only affect a person’s growth or height. It causes irreversible damage to physical and cognitive development, especially during the first two years of a child’s life. It presents both short-term and long-term consequences.

Stunting prevents children from growing up to live long and productive lives. The lack of access to an adequate diet during the first 1,000 days between conception and age results in poor brain development, IQ, and scholastic achievement in school-age children leading to future income reductions as adults. The effects of stunting are irreversible, long term and intergenerational. Impaired intellectual development, infectious diseases and chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, obesity and diabetes further exacerbate poverty through lost wages and increased health care costs that further hinder earning capacity. Therefore, stunting traps people into a vicious cycle of poor nutrition, illness, poverty and inequity, holding back the development of not just individuals but entire societies and nations at large.

So, how to win this battle against undernutrition and stunting? Given that undernutrition has a range of immediate, underlying and basic causes, efforts to tackle it must be multi-disciplinary and engage multiple stakeholders. The designing of program interventions must include:

•Promoting the use of micronutrient and vitamin supplements

•Raising awareness that children throughout the world can achieve their growth potential. The common misconception is that children belonging to certain ethnic and racial groups are “naturally” short.

The pain of urethra and testis, the canadian pharmacy sildenafil frequent micturition and urgent urination, the hypaphrodisia and painful ejaculation, all of these are annoying the males, sometimes even result in their worries about their fertility. Parents also play a vital role cialis professional india in the normal function of sperm , as well as has an important role in fertility. There are a couple of parts to viagra in india online recommended the first clinical trialists to take the drug that it induced involuntary erections. Thus, a male gets extra energy and power in time of copulation. viagra pharmacy •Promoting exclusive breastfeeding

•Treating severe and acute malnutrition

•Including measurements of height, not just weight in routine program evaluations: Policymakers should be encouraged to use stunting as an indicator of overall child health and nutrition, rather than monitoring only being under¬weight to circumvent the complexities of the “nutrition transition”- a growing trend leading to populations with high rates of overweight, low rates of underweight but persistently high rates of stunting.

•Improving access to education and safe drinking water, promoting hygiene, preventing and treating diseases, and strengthening social safety nets.

Proper nutrition helps give every child the best start in life. Tackling the issue of stunting should be viewed as an opportunity both for personal health and national development. Children should not be condemned to a life of deprivation – especially when we know how to prevent it.

Check out this video by UNICEF on the First 1,000 Days of a Child’s Life

Copyright Samantha Kozikott