Despite rapid economic growth, 486 million people in Asia are still hungry – UN report | 1 NEWS NOW

Despite rapid economic growth, the Asia-Pacific region has nearly half a billion people suffering from hunger while progress is being stalled in improving food security and basic living conditions, announced today a report of the United Nations.

Even in relatively affluent cities like Bangkok and the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, poor families can not afford to feed their children enough, which often has devastating long-term consequences for their health and future productivity, the report says. report prepared by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

In Bangkok, more than one-third of children were not receiving an adequate diet in 2017, the report says. In Pakistan, only 4% of children followed a "minimum acceptable diet," the paper said, citing a government investigation.

At the same time, the number of people suffering from malnutrition in the region has begun to increase, particularly in East and South-East Asia, with almost no improvement in recent years.

In the longer term, malnutrition rates have risen from almost 18% in 2005 to 11% in 2017, but stunting related to hunger, which causes permanent impairment, worsens due to poor health. 39, food insecurity and inadequate sanitation. 79 million children under 5 years old across the affected region, according to the report.

The high risks are also reflected in the prevalence of wasting in very young children, a rapid and dangerous weight loss related to illness or lack of food, he said. The disease occurs most often in India and other parts of South Asia, but also in Indonesia, Malaysia and Cambodia, affecting nearly one child in 10 in Southeast Asia and 15% children in South Asia.

"The prevalence of wasting exceeds the threshold of public health concern in three out of four countries in the region," he said.

Conversely, even overweight children often suffer from malnutrition if their family consumes cheap street foods that are fat, starchy and sugary, but are unhealthy and sometimes dangerous.

The report focused on two main factors that have often contributed to food insecurity: climate-related disasters and lack of access to clean water and sanitation.

The authors stated that it was essential to provide safe and clean drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities to prevent diseases that further compromised health, especially for children. He also praised the efforts made in some countries to guarantee citizens access to markets for fresh produce.

In Indonesia, for example, a study cited in the report found that the prevalence of stunting was closely related to access to improved latrines. Children whose families depended on untreated water were more than three times less likely to suffer from stunted growth if their home did not have such latrines, he added.

Although access to drinking water is widespread, it has continued to improve and has even declined in urban areas, the report says.

Many poor people living in Southeast Asia depend on bottled water that claims to be safe but is often contaminated. A sample study in Cambodia found that 80% of these waters contained bacteria and that almost all of them were contaminated with coliforms or faeces.

Ending the practice of open defecation, particularly prevalent in India, remains a challenge, according to the report, partly because of usual factors.

In 2014, the country launched a campaign to end this practice by 2019, bringing the latrine coverage to 65%. In the cities, progress has been faster.