What is malnutrition? Thanks for asking!

World Food Day is celebrated every year on October 16th, commemorating the date on which the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization was created in 1945. Let’s take the opportunity to talk about malnutrition. It’s the consequence of a diet which doesn’t provide a healthy amount of certain nutrients. According to the World Health Organisation, this is due to excesses, deficiencies or imbalance in a person’s energy intake. So as you may have guessed, malnutrition covers both undereating and overeating. Undernutrition leads to excessive weight loss and stunted growth. Meanwhile, eating too much can lead to people becoming overweight, obese and developing non-communicable diseases, like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and certain cancers. Malnutrition can be a direct cause of death, and it also weakens the immune system, making people more vulnerable to other illnesses. That’s why it needs to be treated quickly and efficiently. When you combine the various forms of malnutrition, it is the number one cause of poor health and death in humans.

How many people are affected?

A Global Nutrition report from this year found that one in nine people suffer from hunger and one in three are overweight or obese. Malnutrition is already a problem in every country in the world and the UN estimates it will affect a further 2 billion people by 2050. It leads to more than 9 million deaths per year. Women and young children are the worst affected. Women are victims of inequality in certain countries, and don’t always have access to the food or resources they need to have a healthy diet. Children have more fragile immune systems and are therefore more vulnerable.

So social inequality and poverty are among the causes of malnutrition. What are the others then? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

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