Half of all child deaths are due to malnutrition

In 2021 4.7 million Children under the age of five died; 2.4 million of these were due to child or maternal malnutrition.¹ This means that about half of all child deaths were due to malnutrition.

When you think of these deaths, you can imagine a very acute form of hunger: a starving child. This may be during Famines In areas with very low food supplies, this represents only a small fraction of all deaths due to malnutrition.²

In most cases, children do not die from Malnutrition. They die from diseases that are aggravated or triggered by it. In most cases it is a Risk factor for premature death. Let us take the example of the risk factor smoking. People die out of Lung cancer, but their risk of developing it is significantly increased whether they were smokers.

In the graph below we can see how many child deaths are due to different nutritional risk factors.

By far the biggest problem is low birth weight, which often occurs because the mother is malnourished or suffers from infectious diseases during pregnancy. Babies born with low birth weight – which the World Health Organization defined as weighing less than 2,500 grams or 5.5 pounds – are at much higher risk of infant mortality and health complications.³

After the first weeks or months of life, children are also more susceptible to infections and diseases if they are underweight or malnourished and do not develop healthily. Hundreds of thousands die as a result of “waste”, which means that their weight is too small in relation to their size. Or “Growth retardation”, which means they are too small for their age.

It is not just about getting enough calories. Children are also malnourished if they do not eat a varied diet, meaning they do not get enough protein, vitamins and Micronutrients.

In low-income countries, mortality rates due to malnutrition are much higher. Children there often do not receive the nutrients they need and infectious diseases are more common.

This can be seen in the scatter plot below, which plots deaths from malnutrition on the vertical axis and gross domestic product (GDP) per person on the horizontal axis. In rich countries – on the right side of the graph – the rates are 20 to 50 times lower than in the poorest countries on the left.

For this reason Deaths from malnutrition occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Click here to open the interactive version

Fortunately, we know that we can make progress on this problem. That is because the world already Progress has been made. Fewer children die of malnutrition than a few decades ago.

The following graph shows IHME estimates of the number of deaths due to child malnutrition since 1990.

In 1990, about 6.6 million deaths were attributable to these risks. By 2021, that number had dropped to about 2.4 million.

Click here to open the interactive version

Improvements in nutrition are partly contributing to this decline. Growth retardation in childhood has fallen from 33% to 23% since 1990 and waste has fallen from 9% to 7% since 2000. Percentage of underweight children has also fallen from 21% to 12%.

Advances in combating infectious diseases have also been crucial. Disease and malnutrition are interrelated, with one making people more vulnerable to the other. As I wrote earlier, most people do not die from Malnutrition; poor nutrition can make them more susceptible to infections and vice versa.

Take diarrheal diseases, for example. Malnourished children have weaker immune systems and are more susceptible to these diseases. Once they are sick, it is much harder for them to retain the nutrients from food, which is already scarce. This makes them even weaker and more malnourished, entering a vicious cycle from which it is difficult to escape.

This means that if diseases occur less frequently, the health risks of malnutrition are also lower.

This has has happened in the last decades. Deaths from diarrhoea are thanks to clean water, improved hygiene, hand washing and better and more widespread Treatments for diarrhoeal diseases. Antimalarials and mosquito nets have Malaria mortality ratesMost children are vaccinated against tuberculosisand a growing number against rotavirus.

Support for mothers and babies during pregnancy and after birth has also improved. More births are attended by qualified health personnelwhich means that professional medical staff are available to provide advice and support for babies with very low birth weight.

Combating diseases and health problems among malnourished children is another way to improve poor health. Results of malnutrition. But of course it is crucial to improve the nutrition of children and mothers.

If we want to reduce child malnutrition, it is tempting to focus on child nutrition. But this challenge begins with maternal nutrition, especially during pregnancy.

There are a number of factors that contribute to low birth weight in babies, including genetics. However, the risk tends to be higher if the mother has a poor diet during pregnancy and nutritional deficiencies occur.⁴ Without adequate nutrient supply, fetal development is restricted and babies cannot grow fully. In addition, the IHME estimates that about 34,000 women died from pregnancy-related causes in 2021 due to malnutrition.

Again, it is not just about calories. Women who do not consume enough vital nutrients such as iron, zinc, iodine, calcium and vitamin B,₁₂ — not only have a much higher risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, but are also more likely to give birth to babies with low birth weight and developmental delays.

The obvious solution is to provide women with a varied diet rich in fruits, vegetables, pulses and other nutrient-rich foods. But the problem is that many of the world's poorest women cannot afford this.

As I already wrote, Billions of people cannot afford a “healthy”, adequate diet even if they spend most of their income on food. Hopefully this will improve over time as incomes rise and healthy food becomes cheaper and more accessible. However, these changes will take time and will not solve the problem immediately.

For this reason, we must accelerate alternative solutions that deliver vital nutrients to women more efficiently. And children. This can save hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of lives every year.

One option is to give nutritional supplements. There is good evidence that oral administration of various nutrients during pregnancy reduces the risk of underweight or premature birth.⁵ Studies also show that giving nutritional supplements to malnourished children reduces the risk of death from various causes, including diarrhea and measles.⁶ The charity evaluator GiveWell lists vitamin A supplement as one of the most cost-effective interventions to reduce child mortality and improve quality of life. It is estimated that administering vitamin A costs only $1 per capsule and could lead to a significant reduction in child mortality.⁷

Another is strengthening staple foods such as cereals with important micronutrients, with small amounts of iron, zinc, iodine or vitamins added directly to the products before they are put on the market. This is very common worldwide. In the UK, for example, I can buy breakfast cereals, bread or milk with additional nutrients. Fortifying foods is also incredibly cheap, from only $0.05 to $0.25 per person per year. One problem, however, is that food needs to be processed, meaning fortification is often not a solution for rural communities.

Biofortification could be an alternative. It involves breeding plants to contain more nutrients. Rice or corn grown through biofortification have higher levels of zinc, iron or vitamin A. “Golden rice” – where rice is grown with higher levels of vitamin A – is the best known example of biofortification.⁸

Ultimately, we want people to be able to afford a healthy and varied diet so that they don't have to rely on supplements. But that will take time. Are cheaper and faster ways to better feed mothers and children and thus save lives today.

Hannah Ritchie (2024) - “Half of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ' [Online Resource]

@article{owid-half-child-deaths-linked-malnutrition,
    author = {Hannah Ritchie},
    title = {Half of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition},
    journal = {Our World in Data},
    year = {2024},
    note = {
}

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