The World Health Organisation says quality investment in nutrition can save 3.7 million lives by 2025.
The WHO Assistant Director-General, Naoko Yamamoto, said nutrition should be positioned as one of the cornerstones of essential health packages to provide quality healthcare services and achieve Universal Health Coverage . “It can also help the economy, with every one dollar spent by donors on basic nutrition programmes returning 16 dollars to the local economy,’’ he said.
“The prevalence of stunting in children aged under five years declined from 39.2 per cent to 21.9 per cent or from 252.5 million to 149.0 million children.Mr Yamamoto, however, said obesity was increasing, pointing out that the prevalence of children considered overweight rose from 4.8 per cent to 5.9 per cent between 1990 and 2018.He said adult overweight and obesity were also rising in nearly every region and country, with 1.