Health
THE Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) has advised Nigerians to focus more on consumption of quality foods to defeat increasing rate of malnutrition.
The Country Director, GAIN Nigeria, Dr Michael Ojo, gave the advice on Wednesday in Abuja at a
news conference on activities of the organisation as it celebrates 20th anniversary.
Ojo, who said that malnutrition in the country had been a major problem, stressed that deliberate
efforts must be made by Nigerians to end the menace.
He added that “in terms of the current state of malnutrition in Nigeria, we are very lucky now that we have quite a bit of data.
“Preliminary report from the National Food Consumption and Micro-nutrient intake survey gave us an indication of the state of things.
“Taking some of the data out of that report, one of the key things it showed us is that 79 per cent households that were sampled
across the country are actually food insecure and out of that 79 per cent, 22 per cent are severely food insecure.
“Food insecurity means that people do not have access to the food that they need in a day, while severely food insecure means that
people are actually going without food through the day.
“That paints a really powerful picture of the state of hunger and consequently malnutrition in the country.”
For nutrition indices in the country, he added that stunting, a condition where a child has low height for his/her age, revealled
some slight improvement in the survey.
He also quoted the survey as indicating that “current statistics shows that stunting for children under five years has reduced
to 33.3 per cent, compared with 37 per cent in the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS 2018) of 2018.
He said “this is a some slight improvement, considering the pressure we faced in terms of food insecurity, COVID-19 and so on.
“Wasting, which is the condition where children under five years are too thin for their height, has gone up to 11 per cent from seven per cent as it was in the NDHS 2018.
“Underweight, which means children who are not the right weight for their age is now 25.3 per cent as against 22 per cent in 2018, while overweight has gone down.
“We see the state of nutrition going backwards over the years, in spite of efforts and some of the investment that has gone into it.
“Though some of that are due to the shocks we experienced during COVID-19 and what it did to food systems and supply chains, what it did to incomes of some people, dissertification in the North, flooding and so on.”
The country director, however, added that all Nigerians can enjoy safe and nutritional foods when they take cognisance of the quality of their diets.
He said “most of us buy what we eat as most of us don’t produce what we consume as we buy from the market.
“Giving the levels of income, we see that we spend a disproportionate amount of money buying food. That shows the food we buy are the biggest drain on family incomes.
“People underestimate the opportunities that exist to grow some of these things that are going to be quite nutritious.
“They can have buckets to plant some vegetables or buy a couple of birds and keep them for poultry needs,” he suggested. (NAN)
A.I
Tags: Dr Michael Ojo GAIN Nigeria Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition
