Malnutrition is described as a state of lack of food, characterized by an insufficient food intake to fill the needs for the daily energy expenditure of an individual. This condition leads to nutritional deficiencies. If allowed to be prolonged, this condition causes irreversible damage and, ultimately, death. The term which refers to an inadequate dietary intake differs from that of malnutrition which has a qualitative dimension and referring to a condition caused by deficiency or excess of one or more nutrients.

Malnutrition is marked by an overall and general decline in bodily nutrition, thereby affecting the overall and general decline of an individual’s health.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), more than 25,000 people die each day from malnutrition. The proportion of the population in sub-feed situations differs from one country to another. Between 2003 and 2005, it was, for example, at 63% in Burundi, 21% in Armenia and India, 9% in Ghana and China, and less than 5% in France.

There are three factors that impact the phenomenon of malnutrition, leading to further weaken the poorest households. Experts have delineated these as the three Fs: fuel, food, and financial.

For a while now, the UN FAO has been warning about the dire consequences of the economic crisis, saying that the surge in food and fuel prices will translate to more severe consequences for malnutrition.

Today, the magnitude of this phenomenon called malnutrition is alarming: about one billion people will be affected by hunger this year.

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Via UN/ADBI