Around 38 per cent of South Asia's children (64 million) under five years suffer from stunted growth due to chronic nutritional deprivation, Stop Stunting in South Asia, a special issue of the international journal, Maternal and Child Nutrition, says.
According to the journal, stunting causes physical and neurocognitive damage that is irreversible in most cases. Stunted children have stunted bodies and brains and live stunted lives, hampering the development of societies, it adds.
CREDIT: UNICEF
Professor of population health and geography, Harvard University, S V Subramanian, presented these pictures in her presentation.
She also highlighted the fact that the impact of under-nutrition during childhood affects the whole life. According to Subramanian, one centimetre increase in height in childhood is associated with 4 per cent and 6 per cent increase in wages for men and women, respectively.
Long-run evaluation of randomised childhood nutrition programmes indicate a 25 per cent and 46 per cent increase in wages for those children who were exposed to the intervention.
It is wrong to believe that stunting prevails only in poor families. Meera Shekar from Global Lead Nutrition, World Bank Group, said that there were good examples to prove this point otherwise.
CREDIT: UNICEF
Adequate nutrition in this 1,000-day window is imperative and if not met, the damage to future human capital is essentially irreversible, Shekar said while speaking at an event organised by the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI ) in Delhi.
According to experts, South Asia remains the epicenter of global child-stunting crisis, compromising the future of the entire region.
Stop Stunting in South Asia focuses on three major drivers of child stunting: poor diets of children in the first two years of life, poor nutrition of women before and during pregnancy and poor hygiene and sanitation practices in households and communities.
Health of women is also a major factor. In South Asia, women are thin, especially in India.
CREDIT: UNICEF
To tackle these challenges, experts suggested the increased focus and investment. South Asian nations must invest in large-scale programmes, along with equity-focused social and economic policies, for the prevention of stunting. These programmes must be based on evidence and give priority to the most vulnerable children and women, Karin Hulshof, UNICEF regional director for South Asia, said.
The annual additional cost per child under five is $9.20 at present while it will cost $49.7 billion additional financing globally over 10 years, she said.
Purnima Menon, senior research fellow at IFPRI, said that through their participation in the World Health Assembly, all South Asian countries have endorsed the global target to reduce the number of stunted children by 40 per cent by 2025.
Countries in South Asia need to seize the opportunity of economic growth to invest in addressing child stunting. These are investments that, if supported, can lock in the potential' for children and nations, with benefits that far exceed the cost, she added.