Addressing rising cases of malnutrition

By Maria Famakinwa
|
According to UNICEF report in 2015, Nigeria has the second highest burden of stunted children in the world, with a national prevalence rate of 32 percent of children under five.

The report further revealed that an estimated 2million children in Nigeria suffer from severe acute malnutrition but only two out of every 10 children affected is currently reached with treatment as seven percent of women of childbearing age also suffer from acute malnutrition.

Malnutrition and related diseases like diarrhea, measles, anemia, gastroenteritis among others have been said to be the cause of most deaths in infants and young children. The underlying causes of malnutrition in Nigeria are poverty, inadequate food, uneven distribution and others.

The President of African Development Bank(AFDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, recently, expressed concern over the rising cases of stunted children caused by malnutrition in Africa at the African Leader for Nutrition High-Level Dinner for Heads of state held at Addisa Ababa. He said, ”Africa was the only continent where the number of stunted children had increased over the last two decades. The stunted children in Africa had increased to 58.5million in 2018, from 50.3million at the turn of the country.”

According to him, of the 39 percent of the world’s stunted children and 28 percent of the world’s wasted children are in Africa. ”They are prone to inhibited intellectual and physically growth and sometimes even premature death. These are not just statistics, these are people, our children.” he said.

In the submission of a care provider, Mr Laolu Afolayan explained that the first step to address malnutrition is for couples to give birth to the number of children they can cater for which according to him will help the family to plan better and progress. ”There is no deny the fact that things are very tough with many Nigerians now especially, the low income earners. But to my surprise, these are the category of people who have more children and this is due to lack of proper education.

”If couples are well educated on the need to embrace family planning, it will help them to have the number of children they can cater for and the society will be better for it. Though some religious see the idea of family planning as evil but, this belief does not fit into today’s reality. It is advisable to give birth to number of children you have capacity to care for than having more of them who later become nuisance in the future.”

An educationist, Mrs Bolaji Opaleye, opined that malnutrition can only be solved in the country if Nigerians go back to farming. The woman who maintained that the neglect of farming was responsible for the present predicament in the country want government at all levels to make agricultural science a compulsory subject for all students from primary schools to higher institutions so as to force them develop interest in farming.

Her words,”No nation grow by paying lip service to agriculture. How do you expect a country like Nigeria that import almost everything she consume to overcome poverty and malnutrition? When there is poverty in the land, malnutrition become inevitable. If we go into serious farming, it will solve most of the challenges we are facing as a nation. Let the Federal Government make agricultural science compulsory from primary schools to higher institutions to develop students interest in it. In addition, as soon as students graduate from higher institution, the Federal Government should make a year farming compulsory for all youth corps members and this should be a continuous process, so that as one batch is going another batch coming will take it over.

”If this as been the practice before now, hunger would have been a thing of the past because through the practice, many graduates would have taken to farming due to the experiences gather from primary schools to their service years which will reduce unemployment among our youth and the citizens will be living in surplus and peace because  most social vices presently confronting the nation are traceable to hunger.”  she noticed.

Sharing similar sentiment, a teacher, Mr Koladele Olowu, who submitted that eradicating poverty is the key to all form of poverty  appealed to the Federal Government to create enabling environment for foreigners to invest in the country so that more Nigerians can be employed. He said further that the only way to make the country attractive to foreigners is when the country is relatively peaceful. ” Business can only thrive in a peaceful environment. Let the government take drastic steps against any act that is inimical to the country’s peace. It is then foreigners can come and establish companies to employ jobless youth. Likewise, most Nigerians with good business ideas but could not actualise it due to insecurity will be able to move across the country freely to achieve their aims, unlike now when many are afraid to travel to some parts of the country because of fear of being kidnapped or robbed. When there is peace in the country, the money budgeted for security will be reduced and used to improve the economy to better the lives of citizens

Not only this,  Federal Government should make a strong policy that will cater for the less privilege in the country. Look at the school feeding programme of the present administration, what became of it? How many schools benefited?  Also, making food available and affordable to ordinary citizens is the responsibility of government. Take for instance, the high  price of so called  Nigeria rice in the market that many cannot afford. The rice goes for #600 per rubber yet, we produce it in our country. How many Nigerians can afford this? Federal Government should help to regulate the price and price of other goods.

” Many Nigerians cannot eat three square meal per day, a lot have turn to beggars to survive. Look at Nigerians in different Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs) across the country begging for food, all these are pointer to the fact that there is hunger in the land and  government is not doing enough. Just some days ago, I read that World Health Organization (WHO) supported one million malnourished children in Northeast of the country, it is a welcome development but not enough to solve the problem of malnutrition across the nation. It is every where and need governments response to tackle it urgently.’’