Children Nutrition and Malnutrition: focus on Zimbabwe Related Information






[The Zimbabwe National Nutrition Survey, 2010 revealed a worsening problem of chronic malnutrition, posing long-term survival and development challenges for Zimbabwe, plummeting exclusive breastfeeding rates, with age of greatest malnutrition and infection is from pre-natal period to 24 months ] source T L Mutsekekwa ……[ for more visit this website http://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/media_5965.html



Child nutrition

Adequate nutrition, beginning in early stages of life, is crucial to ensure good physical and mental development and long-term health.
The 30 million low-birth-weight babies born annually (23.8% of all births) often face severe short- and long-term health consequences. Low birth weight is a major determinant of mortality, morbidity and disability in infancy and childhood and also has a long-term impact on health outcomes in adult life. The consequences of poor nutritional status and inadequate nutritional intake for women during pregnancy not only directly affects women’s health status, but may also have a negative impact on birth weight and early development.
Low birth weight also results in substantial costs to the health sector and imposes a significant burden on society as a whole. Whereas the global prevalence of such births is slowly dropping, it is as high as 30% in many developing countries. [ extract from WHO/NHD  http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/feto_maternal/en/ ]

Quick statistics

40% of the global number of children under five who are stunted
50% reduction of anaemia in women of reproductive age
30% reduction of low birth weight
no increase in childhood overweight
increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months up to at least 50%
reduce and maintain childhood wasting to less than 5%

some documents you can download include:

1.       WHO NMH Document on nutrition
2.       Comprehensive implementation plan on maternal, infant and young child nutrition
3.       Development of a strategy towards promoting optimal fetal growth
4.       Maternal and children nutrition
5.       Zimbabwe child malnutrition data
infant and new born nutrition from medline plus
infant and new born nutrition from medlineplus

Documents on Zimbabwe and child nutrition


According to the Zimbabwe Demographic Household Survey of 2010-11 56% of children between the ages of 6 to 59 months are anemic. The National Nutrition Survey which was done in 2010 shows that less than 10% of Zimbabwean children under the age of 2 receive the recommended minimum acceptable diet of eggs, meat, milk products, and legumes are rarely included in the diets of young children.
The World Food Programme recently announced that 2.2 million people are food insecure and are in need of food assistance. Due to high food prices many families can longer afford to have three meals per day, not to mention a balanced diet. Production of small grains and other local varieties, which are huge sources of nutrients, has significantly dropped as farmers now pursue high value crops like tobacco.
2.      
National nutrition survey By Tapuwa L. Mutseyekwa
The Zimbabwe National Nutrition Survey, which was conducted in January 2010 revealed a worsening problem of chronic malnutrition, posing long-term survival and development challenges for Zimbabwe. The survey also shows plummeting exclusive breastfeeding rates. ……In his response to the survey results, UNICEF Representative, Dr. Peter Salama said the survey had further demonstrated that the age of greatest vulnerability to malnutrition and infection is from pre-natal period to 24 months and identifies this period as “the critical window of opportunity’.

While the overall prevalence of severe acute malnutrition remains relatively low across the country for children under five years, at 2.1%, the rates double among younger children between 6-18 months old, suggesting inherent problems in infant feeding practices, including access to right foods. These rates of severe acute malnutrition translate to over 15,000 severely malnourished children that are at a very high risk of dying in Zimbabwe.

Furthermore only about 8% of children below the age of two years old receive the minimum acceptable complementary foods in terms of quality and diversity.  In addition, over a third of the children reside in households not accessing safe water and sanitation facilities.  These factors appear to be directly linked to undernutrition. ……[ for more visit this website http://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/media_5965.html

Africa trends

1.       Child Health - WHO | Regional Office for Africa
Of the 46 countries in the African Region, 36 have under-five mortality rates ... Undernutrition is directly or indirectly responsible for 3.5 million child death every ...

2.        [PDF]Child Malnutrition Child Malnutrition - Unicef
The high levels of undernutrition in children and women in South Asia and sub-Saharan. Africa pose a major challenge for child survival and development.
3.       Child Malnutrition - UNICEF STATISTICS
data.unicef.org/nutrition/malnutrition
Undernutrition contributes to half of all deaths in children under 5 and is widespread in Asia and Africa ... Undernutrition puts children at greater risk of dying from common infections, increases the frequency and severity of such infections, and ...

4.        [PDF]childhood malnutrition in sub-saharan africa and ...
by B Ejide - ‎Related articles Childhood malnutrition, one among the myriad of sustainable development ... in sub-Saharan Africa dominates African narrative to the neglect of malnutrition, ...

5.       Inequities in under-five child malnutrition in South Africa
E Zere, D McIntyre - International Journal for Equity in Health, 2003 - biomedcentral.com
Objectives To assess and quantify the magnitude of inequalities in under-five child
malnutrition, particularly those ascribable to socio-economic status and to consider the
policy implications of these findings. Methods Data on 3765 under-five children were ...

6.       Urban–rural differentials in child malnutrition: trends and socioeconomic correlates in sub-Saharan Africa
JC Fotso - Health & Place, 2007 - Elsevier
This paper examines levels and trends of urban–rural differentials in child malnutrition, and
investigates whether residual differences exist between urban and rural areas, given
comparable measures of socioeconomic status (SES) of households and communities. ...
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some of the books in the collection on nutrition                                

1.       nutrition : a health promotion approach / g Webb
2.       human nutrition Geissler and Powers
3.       a practical guide to child nutrition by Dare and O’ Donovan
4.       The nutritional psychology of childhood by Drewett
5.       Pediatric nutrition handbook by American Academy of Pediatrics
6.       Management of severe malnutrition: a manual for physicians and other senior health workers by World health Organisation
7.       The state of the World’s children: maternal and new born health by UNICEF
8.       Abc of nutrition by a s Truswell
9.       An evaluation of infant growth: WHO working group on infant growth  by WHO
10.   Multiple indicator monitoring survey (MIMS) by ZIMSTAT

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