Almost a quarter (23%) of SA children under five are living in severe food poverty, placing them at risk of malnutrition and cognitive delays, a new report from the UN children’s agency Unicef shows.
Unicef defines severe child food poverty as children who are surviving on just one or two food groups a day, instead of at least five. Children who are experiencing severe food poverty are 50% more likely to suffer from malnutrition, said the agency.
“The consequences of severe child food poverty can last a lifetime,” said Unicef SA representative Christine Muhigana. “Malnutrition in all its forms weakens immune systems and increases children’s risk of dying from common childhood diseases. Children’s brain development is also affected in the early years of life, affecting their ability to learn and leading to lifelong development challenges that can perpetuate the cycle of poverty,” she said.
Globally, nearly half (46%) of the 181-million cases of severe child food poverty are among poor households, but the remainder (54%) live in wealthier households with inadequate access to nutritious food, said Unicef.
Tackling severe child food poverty would require transforming food systems so that nutritious, diverse and healthy foods were the most accessible, affordable and desirable options for feeding young children, said Muhigana. Child nutrition issues are complicated by ready access to cheap, nutrient-poor and unhealthy ultra processed foods and sugary drinks that are aggressively marketed and displace more nutritious and healthier items from their daily diets, said Unicef.
The nonprofit DG Murray Trust, which is lobbying the government to use subsidies to make healthy food more affordable, said Unicef’s results were not surprising.
“The fact that a quarter of children live in extreme food poverty is consistent with what we are seeing across the country — families running out of child support grants by the middle of the month and children surviving on maize porridge until the next payday,” said DG Murray Trust CEO David Harrison. “It is time that the government and industry acknowledged that food insecurity is a crisis that threatens children’s lives, our country’s stability and economic future. It is time for us to stop talking and do something about it,” he said.
The trust has previously said providing retailers and food producers with subsidies for a carefully selected basket of nutritious goods would help close the gap between what children need and what parents can afford, and send a clear signal about good food choices.
Unicef called on the government to finalise the draft regulations for the labelling and advertising of food in SA, which propose front-of-pack labelling and restrictions on the advertising of unhealthy food to children. It also urged the government to ensure that every eligible household receive the child support grant to help meet their children’s basic needs.
Heala, a coalition of civil society organisations advocating for more affordable and nutritious food, said regulating food labels would provide an important means for improving child nutrition. The regulations propose that products with front-of-pack health warnings would not be allowed to be advertised to children, and would give caregivers important insights about the products they considered purchasing, said Heala spokesperson Zukiswa Zimela.
kahnt@businesslive.co.za
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