Editor's Note: View the full report as a PDF at bottom of the page
Dear colleagues,
New estimates on child malnutrition for the indicators of stunting, wasting, severe wasting, and overweight were released yesterday by UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put the world on a crisis footing. Malnourished children are vulnerable and at higher risk of being adversely affected by COVID-19 due to a weakened immune system. And reduced or ceased access to nutritious and safe food and essential health care can tip more children over the edge into malnutrition.
Timely, disaggregated and quality data help identify where vulnerable children live so that interventions, including those aiming to counteract the potential adverse effects of COVID-19, favour the children most in need. And annual data updates can help us see if our promise to protect the children of the world is upheld during the unprecedented crisis.
In 2019, there were 144 million stunted children, 47 million wasted children and 38 million overweight children. Global progress in stunting has been steady, but not fast enough to reach targets. Africa is the only region where the number of stunted children has risen. Meanwhile, the number of wasted and overweight children worldwide has seen no significant progress. These estimates suggest that we are still far from a world without malnutrition and that current efforts need to be scaled up if the WHA and SDG nutrition targets are to be met. The challenge of meeting them, as we move forward in the context of COVID-19, will be ever more pressing. Please explore the data and publication below.
Explore the data
Access the publication
Access the data
Access the interactive visualization
Access the key findings presentation
Learn more about child malnutrition
Wishing you and your loved ones good health. Please share this email with your networks as appropriate.
Mark Hereward
Associate Director, Data & Analytics
Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring
UNICEF
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