Top 10 Most Malnourished Nations in the World

Month of October celebrates the World Food Day where it promotes an awareness to fight hunger and malnutrition. It is true that food is the primary need among the three human basic needs, but there are countries that have higher rate of malnourished people. This is a great indication that poverty is also a recurrent problem that has not been solved in those nations. Poverty and Malnourishment are always integrated or linked to each other because everyone could be fed well if there is a stable income or job that will sustain every household in the community. However, this immediate need is not address despite of the combined efforts of other humanitarian organization and association in the world since there distance limits them to reach those people to give provisions and assistance for them to be nourished and fed in a regular serving of meal in a day. Some of them would just eat if there are supplies that have been delivered from other countries. The ironic part of it, it would take months for them to really have a well-served meal, and at times water and crackers will do to sustain their needs. The increasing numbers of deaths have been reported in a yearly basis in countries where there are higher population of food starvation, and majority of them without even tasting the real meaning of delicious food, and even feasting in a bounty meal. Let us open our eyes to know these top 10 most malnourished nations in the world.  This will serve as an eye opener to appreciate what we have on our table, take advantage of the every blessing that we receive that we could still eat three times a day, and find ways to help those people as well to alleviate their sufferings.

10. Angola

The major problem that caused malnourishment among the citizens in Angola especially to young kids is the post-civil war that they have experienced that resulted to malnourishment of kids, and made them susceptible to various diseases. In fact, the leading cause of mortality in Angola is not because of the after effect of the war, but because of the lack of provision that led to the primary disease that stroke the kids which is the acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Moreover, the growing need of the country has blown out of proportion and it has reached more than $12.7 million in order to sustain the food that people need. In fact, the case of malnutrition in this country is categorically identified as severe, which is the reason why there is collaboration among the health workers of WHO and UNICEF to fight this problem through treatments, and food support.

9. Cambodia

This is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia despite that it was known as a great empire in the history, but it fell from that state and has been experiencing serious hunger and malnourishment. In fact, based on the report, there are about 340 rural families that are being assisted through livelihood programs in order to decrease the growing number of child-related health problems and sicknesses because of imbalanced in nutrition, and underweight concerns. In fact, there is about 40% of malnutrition in the whole country, and majority of the people who are suffering greatly are children under 5 years old.

8. Burundi      

The common denominators of countries that are included on this list are the number of children who are greatly affected of the undernourishment because of lack of nutrition since there are insufficient supplies of food. The description given by UNICEF is that the people in Burundi are chronically malnourished. The level of prevalence affects children under 5 years old, and they are about almost a million, which is 58% according to the report issued by UNICEF. Moreover, the leading cause of it is the poverty state of the country which is attributed because of the bad weather conditions that affects quality harvest. Despite of the united efforts of different agencies in the country by doing feeding program through the Central Emergency Response Fund, this is not enough because they need to address the root cause of the problem before they could fully eradicate number of demise among the poor children who are not properly well-fed.

7. Burkina Faso

UNICEF has described the condition of people in Burkina Faso when it comes to the level of their body nourishment as severe acute malnutrition which is recently issued this year. This is very alarming since it continuously growing because of the recurrent problem in the country which is the hunger gap because there are only two annual harvests. Some of the results of great malnourishment are respiratory infections, slowdown of physical growth and mental development, and they become vulnerable to be infected of malaria, diarrhea, and other diseases.    Nonetheless, there are treatments that being served since 2007 especially to children below 5 years old through local health centres that were built near the homes of the affected people who have nutritional problems.

6. Rwanda

More than 50% of kids in this country are chronically malnourished especially to group of people who are considered poorest among the poor. Despite of great news that happened in Rwanda’s economy, it does not entail that it will also decrease the hunger and malnourishment which have been happening in the country for years. In fact, it has still ranked among all the countries that has low-income and experiencing food deficit. Moreover, the population is also increasing that also creates imbalance to support the needs of the children. Other factors that have been identified which are the root cause of poor income are soil erosion, less agricultural productivity, deforestation, and landscape. There is a strong coherence and relation to those factors because the ability to purchase food that people could bring to their table has decreased because of poor income. Nonetheless, the government has been implementing their national school meal programme which serves the poorest among the poor.

5. Mozambique       

Poverty is the major cause of malnourishment found in the people in Mozambique. It is true that for more than two decades there is a far reaching improvement that happened, and the economy has been stabilized, but population is also growing especially the people who are living in impoverish state in rural areas which is about 70% from their total population of 22.4 million.         The ironic fact about it is that majority of that 70% are women and the source of income is very meager which comes from the agricultural production where most of the rural women work. Hence, the income that each woman earns is very low, and it’s not even sufficient to sustain them in a week. 44% is the chronic malnutrition that being experienced by kids and some areas are flood-prone which also contributes to the increasing ratio of food starvation.

     
4. Afghanistan

The recent reports that can be heard in most of the international channels, and other online portals have shown that one third of the children in Afghanistan population especially in the Southern part have been suffering from acute malnutrition. In fact, despite of the succor from the foreign countries in order to aid people from the famine that they are experiencing, the problem is not really solved permanently, but it still recurrent. It is true that the remedy being served is only temporary, and it does not hewn down the root cause. The most affected area according to reports is found in Helmand and Kandahar. In fact, it could almost be compared or associated in the case of Africa. It is indicated that 29.5% are diagnosed of acute malnutrition, and 30% of them suffered from it because of famine. It has been observed that there are sufficient food supplies in Southern Afghanistan, but illiteracy of people brought health problems to households and poor implementation of breast feeding.

3. Sierra Leone

According to latest report that majority of kids in this country who are under 5 are weighing two lbs which is really a clear indication that there is a serious malnutrition problem. In fact, there are over 300,000 children who are critically malnourished, which is the main reason why there is high percentage of infant illnesses and mortality rate in the country because of malnutrition. Some of the causes are food shortages because of low number of harvest, and the needy areas are high. Nonetheless, one of the plans that they are seeing is to fix damage roads for people to sell the products that they have produced in order to alleviate poverty.

2. Ethiopia

Ethiopia may be a non-oil dependent in Africa, and based on the figures they have a stable economy, but there are external and uncontrollable factors that contribute to poverty ratio of the country. High population, series of droughts, high-tax, soil degradation, and poor infrastructure are hedging up the real growth of Ethiopia, and it results to malnutrition because of the poor purchasing power in order to get sufficient food supply for all households. Infant mortality rates are high which is about 10%, and people could only live up to 42 years old.

1. Nigeria 

Africa still holds the highest number of malnutrition, and its concentrated now in Nigeria, and followed by Ethiopia. It is true that there is a family nutritional programme that that they have established in 2008, and it’s still ongoing, but 1/6 of the population of the country is suffering from chronic hunger wherein there are 3.8 million of children that die yearly. In fact, very alarming too that according to calculations that if this will continue in the next 15 years 450 million of people would suffer, and meet their demise.