Experts call for firm policies to fight malnutrition

Say 40% of children below age of five years are underweight

MULTAN: The government should devise smart policies for long-term solutions to tackle the nutritional problems as 40% of children below the age of five years are underweight in the country.

This was stated by Bahauddin Zakariya University, Institute of Food Science and Nutrition Chairman Dr Saeed Akhtar on Sunday.

Talking to APP he said the issue of malnutrition is because of lack of awareness, climatic changes and poor access to pure food among communities in the country.



Dr Akhtar said that the country is lagging behind the contemporary world to meet the challenges of optimum nutrition at the community level. He added that micro-nutrients deficiencies among these population segments extensively prevailed. “Concerted efforts at gross root level were urged to address the issues of public health significance in the past resulting 40% of children under the age of five years were underweight.”

Answering to a question about judgment of health issues, he said one of the best indicators to ascertain the nutritional status of any population group was to "judge the child health at societal level".

Malnutrition still remained to be one of the biggest challenges faced by the people, he said. Dr Akhtar added that climate change had been a growing threat with harmful  effects on human health. At international level, data was available that more than 800 million people were victim of chronic undernourishment and over two billion people suffered from micro-nutrient deficiencies.

Another expert Dr Tariq Ismail said climate change was amplifying multiple burdens of malnutrition by its effects on food security, public hygiene, water quality and supplies, food safety and maternal and child health care.



The climate change can be considered a pandemic because of its sweeping effects on human health and the natural systems which they depend on, he said. Dr Ismail added that the adverse effects of climate change could pose serious threats to food security especially to small scale food producers' lives and livelihoods.

Future of the country was embedded in agriculture produce, therefore, climate change appears to be a serious challenge with respect to food insecurity and malnutrition, he added. He said that sustainable development goals exclusively focus on ending hunger, achieving food security and better nutrition for population in resource constrained economies as well as the countries of developed world.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2019.