According to the UN, more than one in four children under the age of five worldwide lives in severe nutritional poverty. For the more than 180 million children affected, this can have a negative impact on their growth and development, the UN children’s agency Unicef said on Thursday.
“Children who only eat two food groups a day, such as rice and some milk, are twice as likely to suffer from severe forms of malnutrition,” explained UNICEF director Catherine Russell. UNICEF recommends that young children eat food from five of the eight groups every day. These include breast milk, cereals, meat or fish, and fruit and vegetables.
According to Unicef, there is particularly serious nutritional poverty among children in around 20 countries. In Somalia, 63 percent of young children are affected, in Guinea 54 percent, in Guinea-Bissau 53 percent and in Afghanistan 49 percent. According to Unicef, there is no data for wealthy countries, but children in low-income households there also suffer from nutritional deficiencies.