Malnutrition: Reasons for stunted growth among kids

Malnutrition remains a serious problem facing in children. It is a condition that occurs when people consistently do not consume the right amounts and types of food and essential nutrients. Globally, it contributes to nearly half of all child deaths — approximately that is more than 3 million child in each year.

According to a report, underweight prevalence; children who are too thin for their age increased from 24.2% to 31.5%, stunting prevalence; children who are short for their age increased from 34.8percent to 43.6percent while wasting prevalence; children who are too thin for their height increase marginally from 10.2 %to 10.8%.

Improve the health and well-being of future mothers is also very important to prevent child nutrition. A mother who is healthy will deliver a healthy baby. Governments should also look at giving aid or subsidies to those in the lower socio-economic group.

Sometimes having many children puts a strain on the parents to provide for them. As a result, some children do not even have sufficient milk to drink. Diarrhoea and other infections can cause malnutrition through decreased nutrient absorption, decreased intake of food, increased metabolic requirements etc.

Treatment with antibiotics such as amoxicillin can improves the response and survival rate of severely malnourished children to an outpatient treatment plan which provided therapeutic food. So if we can conquer the space, we can conquer the childhood hunger also.