Malnutrition early in life linked to poor growth: Study

•  More than a million children die each year due to wasting.
• Malnutrition affects babies much earlier than thought.
• More nutritional support is needed for mothers to-be.

KARACHI:  Better nutrition during pregnancy and childbearing years is critical in protecting children in their most vulnerable first 1,000 days, study finds.

Malnutrition affects babies much earlier than thought, and more nutritional support is needed for mothers to-be and their newborns to prevent disease, impaired cognition and death, according to new findings by Prof Zulfiqar Bhutta, founding director of the Institute for Global Health and Development and the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health (COE-WCH) at the Aga Khan University.

In a trio of papers published by the Nature’s Ki Child Growth Consortium, which comprises of researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley, Prof Bhutta examines how malnutrition affects growth in the first two years of life, underscoring a devastating reality for millions of children in the Global South, particularly Asia. Stunting, or being too short for their age, indicates chronic malnutrition, while wasting measures acute malnutrition. The global health community uses both indications to monitor progress toward ending malnutrition.

The analysis involved an international team of more than 100 researchers that examined data on nearly 84,000 children under two years old from 33 major studies that began between 1987 and 2014. The cohorts came from 15 countries in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

It was discovered that in 2022, more than one in five children around the world – nearly 150 million – did not get enough calories to grow normally, and more than 45 million showed signs of wasting, or weighing too little for their height.

More than a million children die each year as a consequence of wasting and more than 250,000 die from stunting. “People who experienced stunting and wasting in childhood may also experience worse cognitive development, which translates into worse economic outcomes as adults”, remarked Prof Bhutta while discussing his breakthrough research.

Appreciating the monumental findings by Prof Bhutta and his team of AKU-based researchers, President AKU, Sulaiman Shahabuddin said, “AKU is stepping up on the global stage to share its portfolio of accomplished researchers and analysts who can help formulate robust policies in child and maternal healthcare. The COE-WCH deserves its due appreciation in contributing generously to this global effort.”

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The report also finds that the effects of malnutrition are seen throughout lower resource settings, but the burden is starkest in South Asian countries like Pakistan, where 20% of children were stunted at birth and more than 52% had experienced wasting by their second birthday, according to new estimates provided by the study.