Half of the children are malnourished
Say experts
Though Bangladesh is self-sufficient in producing food grains, half of the children and one third of the women of the country suffer from malnutrition, a seminar revealed yesterday.
The country is not going to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) until 2044 if the child and maternal health situation does not improve, the speakers said.
The seminar on “Food and Nutrition Security in Bangladesh” was jointly organised by USAID and ICDDR,B in an auditorium of ICDDR,B yesterday. Three papers were presented.
Dr Tahmeed Ahmed, director, Centre for Nutrition and Food Security, ICDDR,B, said in his paper that the prevalence of underweight children has become a matter of concern with half of the total children suffering from the problem since 2000, and the situation has not improved. The prevalence was 70 percent till 1999, indicating food insecurity, he said.
Dr Ahmed said 2.9 percent of the underweight children at present, 5 lakh in number, suffer from acute malnourishment.
More than a quarter of the country's women are suffering from malnutrition, another paper presented by Dr Akhter Ahmed, chief of party, research and strategy support program, IFPRI, showed. “Given the current economic growth, the malnutrition rate is higher in Bangladesh than expected”, he said.
His paper also showed that the annual rate of reduction in the number of underweight children in China, Thailand, and Brazil is higher than their economic growth. “If we wait for economic growth to deal with malnutrition, Bangladesh would not achieve the MDGs until it is the year 2044”, Akhter estimated.
Food security is an essential element for meeting various MDGs related to hunger, child mortality, gender equality, and primary education.
The country has made significant achievements in food production and availability, yet the quality of diet and the issue of nutrition has failed to gain proper attention, Dr Santhia Ireen, senior research investigator, ICDDR,B, observed in her paper.
The experts said over half of the national protein intake is from cereal sources, that too becoming costly, forcing people to eat less and starve. They underscored the need for increasing animal source protein and revitalisation of the health system.
Chief guest of the seminar, Food and Disaster Management Minister Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, said, “Those (statistics presented in the papers) are the extreme condition and I don't disagree”.
Expressing his frustration that Bangladesh is unlikely to achieve MDGs by 2015, the minister requested foreign leaders and donors to provide government and NGO's with fund to attain MDGs as soon as possible.
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