The number of overweight African children under five has tripled to 13,5 million in 20 years, the UN’s health agency said Wednesday, warning of a child obesity (fedme) problem in developing countries.
Poor diet, low rates of breastfeeding and a sedentary (stillesiddende) lifestyle were largely to blame for the sharp rise in overweight children in developing nations, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
In Africa the jump was from four million in 1990 to 13,5 million in 2010, an increase from 4 percent of the total under-five population to 8,5 percent, it said. In Asia the corresponding gain over the same period was from 3,2 percent to 4,9 percent.
WHO is calling for action to fight all forms of malnutrition, including under-nutrition and obesity, which affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
It says nearly 4 million children die each year from nutritional risks, including underweight, and vitamin and mineral deficiency, particularly of vitamin A, iron, iodine and zinc. While lack of food can lead to serious health problems, too much food can have the same affect.
WHO’s Director of Nutrition for Health and Development, Francesco Branca, says 43 million children under age five are overweight.
Low birth weight babies born with iron deficiency (jernmangel) are also the ones more easily exposed to the problem of overweight and obesity, which is a growing phenomenon in many developing countries.
In developing countries, every second pregnant woman and about 40 percent pre-school children are estimated to be anemic, while anemia (blodmangel) also contributes to 20 percent of all maternal deaths, the WHO said.
Worldwide, malnutrition accounts for 11 percent of all diseases and causes long-term poor health and disability, said Francesco Branca, WHO’s director of Nutrition for Health and Development, suggesting that of the 43 million children aged under 5 years who were overweight in 2010, 35 million are in developing countries, particularly in Asia.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
