Children bear brunt of Asia's hunger pains

Malnutrition too often brings death, inflicts disabilities and shortens lives.

File photo: Food was served to the children under the mid-day meal schemes.

By Michael Sainsbury
Asia:  As Christmas approaches, it's worth noting that over half a billion people in Asia are still suffering from chronic hunger while, at the other end of the scale, obesity is increasing at an alarming rate.

Africa is so often presented as the epicenter of world hunger but it is in Asia, which has triple the population, that more people are actually suffering from a lack of food.

The statistics are disconcerting. Some 519.6 million adults and children in Asia consume too few calories, which accounts for about 12 percent of the total population of the continent, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The U.N.'s latest report on hunger indicates that over the last three years there has been a reversal of this downward trend of people going hungry, especially in Africa and South America. Asia has also reportedly seen declining rates of malnutrition in recent decades.

Much of the news from the Asia-Pacific region in the mainstream media is focused on particular crises, such as the ongoing Rohingya refugee issue and various civil wars and strife, as well as major political events.

This comes at the expense of covering endemic problems such as poverty and the hunger associated with it.

Economics and business are often front and center, with GDP growth — an often misleading measure of a country's success — being seized upon as evidence of the improvement that hundreds of millions of people in recent decades have striven for.

But more often than not, the media is overlooking those who are forced to forego the basics that people in Western countries — as well as the growing wealthy and middle classes in Asia — take for granted.

In large swathes of Southeast Asia, many are still living without electricity, sewerage or the facilities to properly dispose of their refuse. Indoor plumbing remains a luxury even in parts of downtown Beijing, Bombay and Bangkok.

The baseline is fresh potable water and enough food to prevent malnutrition as well as other viruses and bacteria that prey on bodies too weak to defend themselves.

The basic economic and policy reasons for this — wealth inequality and limited social safety nets — are exacerbated by climate extremes, infertile land and environmental destruction. Accelerated climate change is making things even worse. This has undermined the production of major crops such as wheat, rice and corn/maize in tropical and temperate regions.

Tragically, children are bearing the brunt and suffering from widespread malnutrition, causing stunted growth and other problems.

Stunted growth is usually the result of inadequate nutrition over a prolonged period and repeated infections during the first two years of life. It is the end result of a biological process where children do not grow to their potential, and it is recognized as one of the most significant impediments to human development.

Meanwhile, "wasting" is defined as being too short for one's height. This can result from famine or severe food shortages. Wasted children often appear very thin and lack the energy to play — or even eat.

This quickly becomes a vicious cycle as those affected early in life have a built-in disadvantage whereby their bodies no longer crave the food they need to develop.

Combined aid agency statistics from the World Health Organization and various U.N. agencies paint a tragic picture.

Globally, there are 151 million children suffering from malnutrition. Of these, about 83.6 million or 55 per cent live in Asia. India has the highest number, with a shocking 38 percent or 46.8 million kids affected by stunted growth. This is about one-third of the global total.

In 2017, over two-thirds of all children under 5 years of age who suffer from "wasting" were in Asia. Southeast Asia accounted for some 35 million of the total, making this a public health emergency. India was the chief culprit as it harbors 26 percent of the global total.

There is much more texture to the picture of hunger across Asia and the world with gender education and political inclusion all playing a role.

A more recent threat has emerged in the form of obesity. Counterintuitively, it shares the same roots as the conditions brought about by hunger, and is due to the widespread availability of highly processed and often inexpensive foods that are high in calories but low in nutrients.

Staple grains that are high in protein, fiber and essential minerals have been replaced by processed rice and wheat flours, which are very low in vitamins and minerals but high in carbohydrates. This has contributed to the spike in the number of people who are overweight.

Meanwhile, the overconsumption of processed foods is leading to more cases of people, especially children being deficient in micronutrients. Bizarrely, this has resulted in a situation where households have some children who are malnourished and some who are obese. This is known as "triple-burden" malnutrition, and it is a growing problem in Asia.

Around 17.5 million people on the continent are now defined as being overweight — and the numbers are rising quickly. Again, South Asia is ground zero for this problem with 5.4 million "victims." China is also increasingly falling prey to this scourge.

Children are being deprived not only of the right to a decent meal but also the right to develop, physically and mentally, as a normal human being.

Yet this is absent from most political rhetoric and election campaigns in Asia despite it being a fundamental building block for improved societies.

It is clear that governments across Asia are failing their children on this simple metric. It is high time that more focus was shone on this issue. And with elections looming in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia in the coming months, now would be a great time to start.

Source: UCAN