Child & Adolescent Nutrition

Nutrition is a critical part of health and development. Better nutrition is related to the improved infant, child and maternal health, stronger immune systems, safer pregnancy and childbirth, lower risk of non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease), and longevity.
Healthy children learn better. People with adequate nutrition are more productive and can create opportunities to gradually break the cycles of poverty and hunger.
Malnutrition, in every form, presents significant threats to human health. Today the world faces a double burden of malnutrition that includes both undernutrition and overweight, especially in low and middle-income countries.(1)

Every infant and child has the right to good nutrition according to the "Convention on the Rights of the Child".(2)

Malnutrition

Malnutrition, in all its forms, includes:
◦ undernutrition (wasting, stunting and underweight),
◦ inadequate vitamins or minerals,
◦ overweight, obesity, and resulting diet-related noncommunicable diseases.

• Globally in 2020, 149 million children under 5 were estimated to be stunted (too short for age), 45 million were estimated to be wasted (too thin for height), and 38.9 million were overweight or obese.(3)
• Only about 44% of infants 0–6 months old are exclusively breastfed.(4)
• Over 820,000 children's lives could be saved every year among children under 5 years if all children 0–23 months were optimally breastfed.
• Breastfeeding improves IQ and school attendance.
• Improving child development and reducing health costs through breastfeeding and home-cooked meals result in economic gains for individual families as well as at the national level.
• Few children receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods; in many countries, less than a fourth of children 6–23 months of age meet the criteria of dietary diversity and feeding frequency which are appropriate for their age.(4)

Around 45% of deaths among children under 5 years of age are linked to undernutrition.(3) These mostly occur in low and middle-income countries. At the same time, in these same countries, rates of childhood overweight and obesity are rising. The developmental, economic, social, and medical impacts of the global burden of malnutrition are serious and lasting, for individuals and their families, communities and countries.

The United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition(3)

On 1 April 2016, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly proclaimed 2016–2025 the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition. The Decade is an unprecedented opportunity for addressing all forms of malnutrition. It sets a concrete timeline for implementation of the commitments made at the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) to meet a set of global nutrition targets and diet-related non-communicable diseases targets by 2025, as well as relevant targets in the Agenda for Sustainable Development by 2030—in particular, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 (end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture) and SDG 3 (ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages).
Led by WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition calls for policy action across 6 key areas:
• creating sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets;
• providing social protection and nutrition-related education for all;
• aligning health systems to nutrition needs, and providing universal coverage of essential nutrition interventions;
• ensuring that trade and investment policies improve nutrition;
• building safe and supportive environments for nutrition at all ages; and
• strengthening and promoting nutrition governance and accountability, everywhere.

WHO Plan(2)

WHO adopted a comprehensive implementation plan on maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, adopted by Member States through a World Health Assembly resolution in 2012. Actions to end malnutrition are vital for achieving the diet-related targets of the Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases 2013–2020, the Global strategy for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health 2016–2030, and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development (SDGs 2 and 3).