MALNUTRITION: Without breastfeeding, MDGs are beyond reach

For 50 years the world has looked for magic bullets to tackle world poverty, an issue which gnaws at the conscience. What we have learned is that there is no single recipe for health and well-being, and that the complexities of development vary everywhere.
But one thing we know for sure is that to be healthy you must eat, and eat properly. Increasingly, solving this apparently simple part of the development equation has been slipping away, eroded by rising food prices and a ballooning world population.
The global leaders meeting in Canada at the G8 and G20 meetings confirmed that low investment in nutrition has been a serious weakness in development policy for decades, and is blocking achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Malnutrition accounts for 11 percent of global disease, killing three and a half million children every year, while two billion people suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
In Sub-Saharan Africa the issues are acute: close to 40 percent of children are stunted, and in Africa, half of pregnant women are anaemic. A quarter of the population is undernourished.
It is not yet clear if this is a Pauline conversion that will cause the G8 to give real effect to its words, but recognising “nutrition security” is certainly reshaping how development is viewed. Why?
Nutrition may not be a fashionable science, but it holds the key to tackling many of the obstacles to human development. The medical journal, The Lancet, has nailed down what nutritionists have known for years – that the correct intake of nutrients and vitamins from conception to two years old determines a whole set of outcomes for both individuals and the society they live in. Poor early nutrition leaves the individual open to a host of diseases, turning common ailments such as colds and diarrhoea into killers.
The conclusion: unless you improve nutrition, the MDGs are beyond reach. The good news is that solutions are at hand and they do not just rely on government. Food is one part of the economy which the private sector drives, and it is showing willingness to help address the problem. Thus new efforts to blend science and marketing are succeeding, proving it is possible to beat chronic undernutrition through better infant and maternal feeding practices – concentrating on exclusive breastfeeding up to six months, better complementary foods from six months – and through fortifying staple foods. Education for all about healthy diets will bring massive dividends to strained health systems.
In the past five years the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition has worked with Governments, NGOs, food companies and producers in more than 25 countries to fortify foods with key vitamins and minerals lacking in consumer diets. These products, as varied as cooking oil and flour in Africa, yoghurt in Bangladesh, biscuits in India and soy sauce in China, are already reaching close to 300 million consumers every day, with direct cuts in rates of illness.
In South Africa, neural tube defects fell by 30 percent after folic acid was added to maize meal and wheat flour through a national effort. In Morocco, the prevalence of folate deficiency in women decreased more than 9 percent and the prevalence of anaemia fell more than 3 percent over a two-year period following the fortification of wheat flour with iron and folic acid.
Millions of Egyptians are consuming fortified Baladi bread, the staple food of the country, thanks to the Egyptian Government supporting the costs of the folic acid and iron that are being added to the wheat flour used to make the bread. Malawi has succeeded in integrating nutrition across Government Ministries and, with strong support from the President, has seen a significant decline in malnutrition.
There are plans are to extend these programmes to one billion people across the world in the next five years. None of this is novel. Fifty years ago Nelson Mandela said that “poverty goes hand in hand with malnutrition and disease. The secondary results of such conditions affect the whole community and the standard of work performed”.We can take inspiration from Nelson Mandela to make nutrition security central to realising every person’s human rights. Food and nutrition security are modest and highly achievable goals vital to almost half of humanity. According to a study prepared for G8 leaders the issue of nutrition could be solved for just $10 billion a year. In terms of aid budgets let alone global economies, this is a sum – to use the language of economic commentators – which is eye-wateringly modest.
We must ask ourselves why we would invest in vaccines, bed nets, schools and economic models designed to lift women, children and families out of poverty, if they are compromised right from the start. We must first change this root cause of malnutrition, so that every mother and every child has a real, fair, and full chance at living a life to their full potential.
Marc van Ameringen, is the Executive Director of GAIN – Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/08/12/without-breastfeeding-mdgs-are-beyond-reach/