Breastfeeding provides the perfect nutrition for your baby and provides many health benefits for both mother and baby.
» Initiating breast feeding within the first hour and exclusive breastfeeding can prevent under two mortality.
» Breastfeeding: Exclusive breastfeeding
» Colostrum - Gift of a protective cover from the mother
» We believe all mothers know how to feed their child. But do they?
» Myths and facts about breast milk
» Complimentary feeding
» Role of media in promoting proper young child feeding: Media should focus on and promote measures that are required to be taken urgently to ensure the survival of children
One billion. That's the number of hungry people worldwide. The effects are
heartbreaking. The causes myriad. Solutions are needed now to feed future
generations. In this series, the UN 's three food agencies - FAO, WFP and
IFAD - take us around the globe in search of answers to some of the most
pressing questions we face today.
Research shows that inadequate maternal and child nutrition is the underlying cause of 3.5 million deaths every year and 35 percent of the disease burden for children under 5 years of age.
However, universal coverage of proven nutrition-related interventions could reduce overall mortality of children under 3 by 25 percent.
Are you familiar with the basic concepts of good nutrition?
How does nutrition affect maternal and child health?
What are common nutritional deficiencies, vulnerable groups, and the causes of undernutrition?
The Nutrition course covers the basic concepts of good nutrition and common
nutritional deficiencies, the magnitude of malnutrition in different
populations, the causes of undernutrition in vulnerable groups, and key
indicators and ways of measuring them. It also outlines the major
population-based interventions to improve nutritional status. One-time
registration at
globalhealthlearning.org gives you free access to this and 49 other
courses that cover a variety of global health topics.
Drought in the Horn of Africa, coupled with conflict in Somalia, has affected over 13 million people. WFP is implementing food operations
in five countries in the region (Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda). This page brings together a range of information on the hunger
crisis in the Horn and WFP's emergency response.
Accelerating interventions aimed at improving infant and young child feeding (IYCF) at community level is a key priority in the effort to improve
survival, growth, and development of children with equity.
UNICEF recently developed a new set of generic tools for programming and capacity development on community based IYCF counselling.
Right now, the humanitarian food aid system provides nutritionally
inadequate foods to malnourished children under two years of age.
Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and VII Photo
present “Starved for Attention,” a multimedia campaign exposing the
neglected and largely invisible crisis of childhood malnutrition.
The fight against persistent underweight, stunting and wasting among children in developing countries is based on appropriate maternal,
infant and young child feeding practices including micronutrient deficiencies prevention and control. However, wasted children are those
at immediate risk of dying and will need timely detection and correct management for their survival.
The orange ribbon is an awareness ribbon for malnutrition.
More than half of all child deaths are associated with malnutrition, which weakens the body's resistance to illness. Poor diet,
frequent illness, and inadequate or inattentive care of young children can lead to malnutrition.
If a woman is malnourished during pregnancy, or if her child is malnourished during the first two years of life, the child's physical
and mental growth and development may be slowed. This cannot be made up when the child is older – it will affect the child for the rest of his or her life.
Children have the right to a caring, protective environment and to nutritious food and basic health care to protect them from illness and promote growth and development.
Click on the marker
to see the GHI for your country of interest.
Click on the Country name/Rank above for IFPRI resources.
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is designed to comprehensively measure and
track hunger globally and by country and region. Calculated each year by the
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the GHI highlights
successes and failures in hunger reduction and provides insights into the
drivers of hunger. By raising awareness and understanding of regional and
country differences in hunger, the GHI aims to trigger actions to reduce
hunger. Read
more
Seven hundred and fifty thousand Somalis may die of starvation this year.
That’s equivalent to wiping out every single person in Washington [DC], plus 150,000 more.
The scale of the disaster in the Horn of Africa is something difficult to
wrap your head around. Consider some of the other numbers:
The rate of malnutrition in Somalia is now 50 percent, meaning half of its people are at risk of malnutrition, starvation or death.
Some 12 million people across the region need food aid, a number equivalent to the entire population of Illinois.
The amount of money needed to stop the disaster in Somalia is $2.4 billion, the same amount of money Warren Buffett made today alone on paper.
The United Nations is $1.1 billion short of that goal, the same cost as the initial estimated cost of the damage of Hurricane Irene.
Malnutrition is an abnormal physiological condition caused by deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in energy, protein and/or other
nutrients. Undernutrition is when the body contains lower than normal amounts of one or more nutrients i.e. deficiencies in macronutrients and/or
micronutrients. The most pervasive form of malnutrition to date in the poorest countries is undernutrition.
For the Whole Community
Healthy Nutrition Contains practical and easy-to-understand information about the principles of healthy nutrition.
Malnutrition Contains a simple explanation about malnutrition and an overview about the malnutrition situation in India and Maharashtra for the general public.
Nutrition in the Context of HIV/AIDS The HIV pandemic and the risk of mother to child transmission of HIV through breastfeeding pose unique challenges to promotion of breastfeeding. It is important to promote HIV Individual counselling and Testing among all pregnant and lactating women.
Practitioners and Program Managers
Protection, Promotion and Support of Healthy Maternal, Infant and Young Child Feeding This section looks at healthy nutrition from a programmatic point of view. It includes links with high impact nutrition interventions and an introduction on the ENA approach to support planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of high-impact nutrition interventions.
Early Detection and Referral of Children with Malnutrition
Looks at feasible ways to timely detect and refer children with malnutrition from primary health care units and communities. It
is intended to increase coverage through active case finding and referral of children with malnutrition at all contact points before the onset of life threatening complications.
Management of Child Malnutrition
Looks at the severely malnourished, with an in-patient outline based on WHO standards and updates from Professor Michael Golden and an out-patient outline based mainly on
the Community-based Therapeutic Care (CTC) Field Manual by the CTC Research and Development program (collaboration between Valid International and Concern Worldwide).
Interactive
Hunger Map This is one way to map hunger – by percentage of undernourished in the total population. Click here to download the FAO Hunger Map.
This map shows startling facts about nutrition and children in our world where
one out of four children from developing countries are underweight. [...]
Women have a crucial role to play in the fight against hunger. As mothers, farmers, teachers and entrepreneurs, they hold the key
to building a future free of malnutrition. Here are ten reasons why empowering women is such an important part of our work.
Women make up a little over half of the world's population but in many parts of the world, especially in Asia and South America, they are more likely to go hungry than men. (Source:
Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development, FAO, March 2011)
Closing the gender gap in agriculture by giving women farmers more resources could bring the number of hungry
people in the world down by 100 - 150 million people. (Source: Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development, FAO, March 2011)
Rural women produce more than 55 per cent of all food grown in developing countries.(Source: EcoSoc)
Worldwide, for every 100 boys out of school there are 122 girls. But in some countries the gender gap is much wider.
For every 100 boys out of school in Yemen there are 270 girls, in Iraq 316 girls and in India 426 girls. (Source: UNESCO
Global Monitoring Report, 2007).
Educated mothers have healthier families. Their children are better nourished, are less likely to die in infancy and more
likely to attend school. (Source: The
State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2005)
Around half of all pregnant women in developing countries are anaemic. Iron deficiency causes around 110,000 deaths during child birth each year. (Source: Progress
for Children: A World Fit for Children, UNICEF, 2007)
Malnourished mothers often give birth to underweight babies who are 20 percent more likely to die before the age of
five. Up to 17 million children are born underweight every year. (Source: Progress
for Children: A World Fit for Children, UNICEF, 2007)
Did you know
In 2008, the number of undernourished people in the world rose to 963 million (more than the combined populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union), up 40 million from 2007.
Hunger does not affect just the individual. Economists estimate that every child whose physical and mental development is stunted by hunger and malnutrition stands to lose 5 percent to 10 percent in lifetime earnings.
The total food surplus of the United States alone could satisfy every empty stomach in Africa; France's leftovers could feed the hungry in Democratic Republic of Congo and Italy's could feed Ethiopia's undernourished.
Today 25,000 people will die from hunger. A child dies every six seconds of malnutrition or starvation.
There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have the nourishment necessary for a healthy and productive life.
The global rise in food prices has pushed an estimated 40 million more people into hunger this year, UN food agency says. There are now 963 million hungry people, accounting for almost 15% of the world population. The financial crisis, could tip even more people into poverty and hunger, it warns.
By 2009-end, the ranks of the hungry is expected to swell to 1 billion people. Number of hungry rose by 110 million in past 6 years.
Chronic hunger is calculated by prevalence of child malnutrition in population, rates of child mortality and proportion of people who are calorie deficient.
There are an estimated 350 to 400 million children under 18 suffering from hunger in the world today.
WHO/UNICEF estimates 149 million children under five are underweight — a key indicator of undernutrition.
Between five and six million under-fives die each year from diseases which they could have survived if they were not undernourished.
73 percent of the world’s underweight under-fives live in just ten countries.
In the index, all Indian states are at 'serious' level of hunger. 12 states fall in 'alarming' category.
Madhya Pradesh is India's most malnourished state.
Diarrhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done
Diarrhoea is the second leading cause of death among children under five globally. Nearly one in five child deaths – about 1.5 million each year – is
due to diarrhoea. It kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
Today, only 39 per cent of children with diarrhoea in developing countries
receive the recommended treatment, and limited trend data suggest that there has been little progress since 2000. more >>
Babies who are breastfed are generally healthier and achieve optimal growth and development compared to those who are fed formula milk.
If the vast majority of babies were exclusively fed breastmilk in their
first six months of life – meaning only breastmilk and no other liquids or solids, not even water – it is estimated that the lives of at least 1.2
million children would be saved every year. If children continue to be breastfed up to two years and beyond, the health and development of millions
of children would be greatly improved.
more >>
"We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the foundation of life.
Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made and
his senses are being developed.
To him we cannot answer 'Tomorrow'. His name is
'Today'."
Gabriela Mistral, 1948
This web site is a work in progress.
New components, tools, videos and other content is being added regularly.
"Knowledge is the enemy of disease. That is a powerful metaphor.
Applying what we know already will have a bigger impact on health and
disease than any drug or technology likely to be introduced in the next
decade." -
The Lancet
Knowledge is built incrementally with one person building upon the work of another. The more we make this process easy the faster knowledge will reach
and thus benefit all of human kind.
In order to provide more comprehensive and meaningful search
results on our site, several reports are available for viewing and download directly. Kindly visit the main sites of the author organisations for more
complete and updated information. We acknowledge our gratitude to the many people and sources whose work has been drawn freely upon. We thank them all.
"If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton
Download .pdf
The challenge of hunger: Taming price spikes and excessive food price volatility
to see the GHI for your country of interest.
Infographic: Famine in the Horn of Africa
This map shows startling facts about nutrition and children in our world where
one out of four children from developing countries are underweight. 
Babies who are breastfed are generally healthier and achieve optimal growth and development compared to those who are fed formula milk.
