Nigeria must address malnutrition,12 million under-five children stunted – UNICEF

The United Nations Children’s Fund has again raised the alarm over the burden of child malnutrition in the country, stating that 12 million out of the 35 million under-five children in Nigeria are stunted due to malnutrition.

It, therefore, called for increased funding and other measures that could help in arresting the challenge urgently.

A UNICEF nutrition officer, Nkeru Enwelum disclosed this in Port Harcourt during a two-day media dialogue on child malnutrition in Nigeria with the theme, ‘Investing in child malnutrition for the future’ organised by the Child Rights Information Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in collaboration with UNICEF.

Nkeru Enwelum urged governments at all levels and relevant stakeholders to invest in nutrition to reverse the trend and for the country to have healthier children.
She noted that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life offered a unique window of opportunity for preventing undernutrition and its consequences, stressing that the country was not investing enough in nutrition.

According to her, Nigeria is ranked number one in Africa and second in the world in terms of malnourished children.

“Stunting is a form of malnutrition which occurs when a child has low height for his age and stunting as a form of malnutrition is what we refer to as chronic malnutrition because it happens over a long period of time.

“ The effect of stunting can carry on and contribute to developmental delays and impair cognitive development . For a child it can have an effect on the school performance and also his productivity as well as going into adulthood.

“The National Demographic and Health Survey 2018 tells us that currently one in three Nigerian children is suffering from stunting.”

Nigeria signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991 and access to good nutrition which UNICEF describes as an important right of every child.
In 2003, Nigeria signed the Child Rights Act and 29 out of 36 states have strong Child Rights Act.

On how Nigeria can address the problem, the UNICEF nutrition officer noted, “All we need to do now is to see how we can implement malnutrition prevention, interventions and approaches.

” Also to make sure that children eat well and have access to all the services that they should have access to such as vitamin A supplementation and deworming so that they will not fall ill and they are able to grow well.

“Government should prioritise on preventing malnutrition. It is cheaper to prevent malnutrition than to treat malnutrition.

“Government needs to implement multi-sectoral action too to ensure that all the sectors are working together and the health sector is delivering on all the nutrition interventions and priority for children. When we do all of these, over a period of time, we would definitely see a reduction.”