Nutrition and Malnutrition

There are many reasons nutrition and malnutrition are large areas of concern for young children in early childhood.  Abraham Maslow once stated that a child must have his or her basic needs in order to be able to function and be successful in education.  Nutrition is one of those basic needs.  Children must have good nutrition and a balance meal to have healthy cognitive development.  A study has been shown that children who are healthy score higher on aptitude test and have better muscle control noth fine and gross motor.  However there can be amy negative effects of malnutrition in young children. 

According to mother/childnutrition.org malnutrition can stunt children's growth, cause death, and have irreplacable damage on young children age 2 and younger.  Listed below are  facts about hunger and malnutrtion in women and young children.

 

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.

Today in India malnutrition ranks 66 out of 68 countries, with over 200 million people starving. 
Malnutrition places a heavy burden on India. It is linked to half of all child deaths and nearly a quarter of cases of disease. Malnourished children tend not to reach their potential, physically or mentally, and they do worse at school than they otherwise would.

There are many reasons. Most fundamentally, poor parents find it hard to buy enough food; but that is by no means the only factor. Impoverished and rural families are also less likely to go to a doctor when their children fall sick, which they do a lot, thanks to dirty water and poor hygiene. Inadequate nutrition lowers the immune system, increasing the risk of infectious disease; illness, in turn, depletes a child’s nutritional stocks.

I believe that nutrition and malnutrition is a serious topic in early child development it effects all domains and can help or hinder a child.This topic is splly important to me because I am in preschool and deal with a variety of backgrounds of children.  I have seen those who don't eat unless they are at school and those who receive a well-balanced meal both at home and school.  I never want to see a child go hungry or not able to function because they did not have enough to eat.  It is my job as an early childhood educator to educate parents on the benefits of nutrition and be the voice of the voiceless my young students.