"7.3 Million Adolescent Nigerian Girls Malnourished": New Reports Warns
- The lives of many Nigerian babies are at risk, a new report from United Nations Children's Fund has warned
- The report said that this risk can be attributed to the spiking number of malnourished girls which rose from 5.6 million in 2018 to 7.3 million in 2021 in Nigeria
- According to UNICEF, there is a need for a holistic approach towards ensuring that girls and women of reproductive age consume the recommended diet of at least 5 out of 10 food groups
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With half of stunting in children under the age of two developing during pregnancy and before they hit six months, a new global report has raised an alarm about the need to invest in essential nutrition programmes for adolescent girls and women across the globe.
The report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned that the number of adolescent girls and women aged 15-49 years who are malnourished has skyrocketed from 5.6 million in 2018 to 7.3 million in 2021 in Nigeria.
The report described Nigeria as one of the nations among the 12 hardest hit countries by the global food and nutrition crisis.
According to the report, the 12 countries include Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.
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These countries are the baseline for the global nutrition crisis that has been increased by the recent impacts of COVID-19 and exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and ongoing drought, conflict, and instability in some countries.
Details show that the report titled, "Undernourished and Overlooked: A Global Nutrition Crisis in Adolescent Girls and Women" was issued ahead of International Women’s Day.
It warns that the ongoing crises, aggravated by unending gender inequality, are deepening a nutrition crisis among adolescent girls and women that had already shown little improvement in the last two decades.
In her explanation, UNICEF's executive director, Catherine Russell, said that this nutrition crisis is pushing millions of mothers and their children into hunger and severe malnutrition.
She added:
“Without urgent action from the international community, the consequences could last for generations to come.”
The UNICEF report also said that from an unprecedented and comprehensive look at the state of adolescent girls and women’s nutrition globally, more than one billion of this population suffer from undernutrition (including underweight and short height), deficiencies in essential micronutrients, and anaemia, with devastating consequences for their lives and wellbeing.
The report added that in Nigeria, 55 per cent of adolescent girls and women suffer from anaemia while nearly half of the Nigerian women of reproductive age do not consume the recommended diet of at least 5 out of 10 food groups (grains and tubers, pulses, nuts and seeds, dairy, meat, poultry and fish, eggs, dark green leafy vegetables, other vitamin A rich fruits and vegetables, other vegetables and other fruits), according to the 2022 National Food Consumption and Micronutrient Survey.
Inadequate nutrition during girls’ and women’s lives can lead to weakened immunity, poor cognitive development, and an increased risk of life-threatening complications – including during pregnancy and childbirth – risking mother’s lives, also, with dangerous and irreversible consequences for their children’s survival, growth, learning, and future earning capacity.
For example, in Nigeria, 12 million children under 5 are stunted, meaning they are too short for their age due to malnutrition. Of those, about half become stunted during pregnancy and the first six months of life, the 500-day period when a child is fully dependent on maternal nutrition, according to a new analysis in the report.
Russell added:
“To prevent undernutrition in children, we must also address malnutrition in adolescent girls and women."
According to the report, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa remain the epicentre of the nutrition crisis among adolescent girls and women, home to 2 in 3 adolescent girls and women suffering from being underweight globally, and 3 in 5 adolescent girls and women with anaemia. Meanwhile, adolescent girls and women from the poorest households are twice as likely to suffer from being underweight as those from the wealthiest households.
Since last year, UNICEF has scaled up its efforts in the countries hardest hit by the global nutrition crisis, including in Nigeria. with an acceleration plan to prevent, detect, and treat wasting in women and children.
The report calls for governments, development and humanitarian partners and donors, civil society organizations and development actors to transform food, health and social protection systems for adolescent girls and women by:
Prioritising adolescent girls’ and women’s access to nutritious, safe and affordable diets, and protecting adolescent girls and women from ultra-processed foods through marketing restrictions, compulsory front-of-pack labelling and taxation.
Implementing policies and mandatory legal measures to expand large-scale food fortification of routinely consumed foods such as flour, cooking oil and salt to help reduce micronutrient deficiencies and anaemia in girls and women.
Ensuring adolescent girls and women in low- and middle-income countries have free access to essential nutrition services, both before and during pregnancy, and while breastfeeding, including ante-natal multiple micronutrient supplements.
Expanding access to social protection programmes for the most vulnerable adolescent girls and women, including cash transfers and vouchers to improve girls’ and women’s access to nutritious and diverse diets.
Accelerating the elimination of discriminatory gender and social norms such as child marriage and the inequitable sharing of food, household resources, income and domestic work.
For Cristian Munduate, UNICEF Nigeria country representative, there is a need to prioritize the access of adolescent girls and women to nutritious food and essential nutrition services
She said:
"The nutrition crisis is deepening among them, and urgent action is needed from all partners including the government of Nigeria and the international community.
"We cannot afford to overlook this crisis, and we must work together to transform food, health and social protection systems for adolescent girls and women."
'We need more girls to go to school in Nigeria,' says 13-year-old Abdullahi Buhari
Meanwhile, Nigerians have been urged to join in the move to get more girls enrolled in schools across the country.
This call was made by 13-year-old Abdullahi Buhari of Government Day Secondary School Abukur in Rimi Local Government Area of Katsina state.
Buhari's advocacy comes as UNICEF in partnership with the Ministry of Education, and the UK FCDO has successfully facilitated the enrollment of 1.5 million girls in schools in northern Nigeria.
Education experts reveal why Nigeria is experiencing low learning outcomes
Legit.ng had earlier reported that experts across the country have called for strategic approaches to improving learning outcomes in school children.
The experts warned that 70 per cent of the children who are currently in school are not even learning.
According to them, there is also a need for all stakeholders in education to work towards ensuring teachers' development bearing in mind, the importance of training and retraining school instructors.
Source: Legit.ng
