Nutri on News Le er October 2016
From the editor
T
he nutrition news letter provides a platform of sharing opportunities to nutritionists, and food scientist and other health related professionals and students in Makerere University as well as other Ugandan universities. The news letter coordinates by and brings together brings together food and scientists to explore all the opportunities they have in common and look for way forwards to solving the problems and challenges faced by the community that can be addressed by the use scientific approaches from other disciplines including engineering, biology chemistry and others. Food security and nutritional security have become one of the major concern of the world of late, due to the increasing population and the decreasing food production. land degradation and environmental change, all call for a multilateral approach while addressing food security in the world. Africa having the most fertile and unexploited land in the world, surprisingly is ranked as the hungriest continent. This calls for a more complex approach while addressing hunger in Africa. With the biggest levels of stunting kids do not get enough food to eat during their infancy or thorough out their lifecycle. Ideas and articles are welcome on child nutrition maternal and child nutrition, geriatric nutrition, food security, engineering and other related fields. Musinguzi Muhsin Editor musingubya@yahoo.com +256701389209
Malnutrition: Africa’s biggest nightmare When you try to guess the ages of African children after you have been grown from other parts of the world, you would be shocked by guessing wrong in each attempt. The children will physically show that they are young yet they are older than what they seem to be. This is an impact of malnutrition on the African child the children are mostly suffering from a condition known as stunting. They are not necessarily starving, but they seem not to be getting enough food to cater for their needs leaving them years behind in their development. Stunting not only affects a child’s height, it also affects brain development. Stunted children are more likely to fall behind at school, have delayed school enrolment and generally have poor class performance. When stunted children don’t reach their potential in school and society, neither do their countries. So malnutrition can sap a country’s strength by lowering productivity and may keep the entire nation vicious cycle of poverty. The biggest population of stunted children live in Africa, being that worldwide, one in four children is stunted. Three-quarters of them live in South Asia and sub- and Saharan Africa. However, while stunting has declined by more than a third in South Asia since 1990, in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of stunted children is still on the rise, up 12 million since 1990 to 56 million. Forty percent of all children in sub-Saharan Africa are stunted. Thanks to economic growth and smart policies, the extreme hunger and starvation that once defined the African continent are now rare today in Africa the issue isn’t quantity of food as much as it is quality. In most societies mothers cannot fully provide children with all the food values they need for growth and development. Due to lack of food literacy and the poor food choice. The problem of malnutrition in Africa has a great complexity and the underlying causes are in some cases not fully understood. There’s no vaccine to prevent stunting nor wasting in children. The only solution seems to be proper nutrition that involves eating enough food, and the right kinds, every day of your life. Scientifically it has been proved that getting children the right nutrition in the first 1000 days, from the start of a woman’s pregnancy until her child’s 2nd birthday is the best option towards solving the problem of malnutrition, this gives children an opportunity to grow and develop physically and mentally Together with exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of a child’s life is the single most effective intervention to help the brain develop and protect against life-threatening diseases. So maternal and child nutrition will always have to move together if you are to address the right feeding in the first 1000days of life shooting two birds with one stone. A well nourished mother is likely to produce a well nourished baby and will be able to breastfeed the baby with nutrient rich breastmilk. When fruits, vegetables, and meats are in short supply kids have a hard time getting the nutrients they need for optimal growth so fortifying staple foods like cooking oil, flour, and salt with essential vitamins and minerals can fill the gap. Developing nutrient enhanced crops like sweet potato that’s enriched with vitamin A and also produce a higher yield, helps smallholder farmers to put more nutritious food directly on table and also improves their income from the high yields obtained this also helps in diversifying their family diet.
Immunization and proper health care can also help fix the problem of malnutrition in children for instance who are immunized in time are likely not to suffer from immunizable diseases that deprive children from proper utilization of the nutrients that are found in food. Also, clean water and sanitation play a role in improving nutrition by reducing illness and disease. There is much more research to be done in the area of fighting malnutrition and more progress continues to be done. The biggest area of emphasis however should be giving all children the nutrition they need for optimal health in the first 1000 days of life from the time of conception to the s child 2nd birth day.
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