Causes of Malnutrition and How the Government addresses it

The current world population is 7.2 billion people, of which 900 million are malnourished in which 9 million consist of children. Malnutrition is a condition, which results from a diet where certain nutrients are lacking, in excess or in wrong proportions.

Extreme malnutrition can cause starvation and obesity. Starvation is most commonly found in less-developed countries, whilst obesity is found in an industrialized and developed country. Not surprising that obesity is seen in industrialized and developed country as food is easily accessible as compared to an under developed country where food is scarce and help is required. As reported by the World Health Organisation, hunger and related malnutrition is the greatest single threat to the world’s public health.

Malnourishment occurs everywhere in the world but is most often found in less developed countries. This is because people there rarely think about malnutrition. Malnutrition remains a largely ignored problem that affects a quarter of the world’s children, global hunger afflicts nearly a billion people worldwide. Every year at least 1 million people die from malnutrition in over 40 countries of the world. A study that was conducted says that 300 children die every hour because of malnutrition, with woman and children being the most vulnerable and worst affected. Not only is malnutrition fatal on its own, it causes people to be more vulnerable to fatal diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. If malnutrition does not cause death, it causes stunted growth among millions of people. The main root causes for malnutrition is conflict, decision-making powers, education, environmental factors, illness, inequities, gender, poverty and urban-rural differences.

Armed conflict is a ve...

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...urishment. Working with the international community to respond to emergencies, which cause hunger when they occur. We could also help other countries in Africa and Asia to grow more of the food their communities need with seeds, tools and technical training to improve their production, income and nutrition. They could also work with other countries, businesses and aid agencies to encourage greater investment in farming and invest in agricultural research and innovation to find the best solution to malnutrition in different countries, including helping scientists develop more nutritious or more disaster resilient crops.

The UK government is committed to help reduce hunger around the world as part of the Millennium Development Goals, a series of targets agreed at UN in 2000 and aims to halve the proportion of people who suffer from the hunger between 1990 and 2015.