By Dare Akogun
Nigeria recorded additional 1.7 million undernourished adolescent girls and women of reproductive age between 2018 and 2021, this is according to a new report published by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).
With the report Nigeria now has about 7.3 million adolescent girls and women of reproductive age suffering from undernourishment, a sharp rise from 5.6 million in 2018.
The report published on March 7, 2023 ahead of the 2023 International Women Day was titled ‘Undernourished and Overlooked: A Global Nutrition Crisis in Adolescent Girls and Women’, shows that Nigeria is among 12 countries representing the epicenter of a global nutrition crisis, with a large malnourished population.
The nations are Afghanistan, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen.
The report heaped the blame on the recent impacts of COVID-19, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and ongoing drought, conflict and instability in some countries.
According to the report, undernutrition risks women’s and newborns’ lives.
The report, warns that the ongoing crises, aggravated by unending gender inequality, are deepening a nutrition crisis among adolescent girls and women that had already shown slight improvement in the last two decades.
It also revealed that more than 1 billion adolescent girls and women suffer from undernutrition (including underweight and short height), deficiencies in essential micronutrients, and anaemia, with devastating consequences for their lives and well-being.
According to the 2022 National Food Consumption and Micronutrient Survey “At least 55 per cent of adolescent girls and women suffer from anaemia in Nigeria, while nearly half of the women of reproductive age in the country do not consume the recommended diet of at least five out of 10 food groups, namely grains and tubers, pulses, nuts and seeds, dairy, meat, poultry and fish, eggs, dark green leafy vegetables, other vitamin A rich fruits and vegetables, other vegetables and other fruits
“Inadequate nutrition during girls’ and women’s lives can lead to weakened immunity and poor cognitive development.
“It also increases the risk of life-threatening complications – including during pregnancy and childbirth – risking mothers’ lives, with dangerous and irreversible consequences for their children’s survival, growth, learning, and future earning capacity,”it stated.
The report notes that South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa remain the epicentre of the nutrition crisis among adolescent girls and women, home to two in three adolescent girls and women suffering from being underweight globally and three in five adolescent girls and women with anaemia.
The report further shows that global crises disproportionately disrupt women’s access to nutritious food. In 2021, there were 126 million more food-insecure women than men, compared to 49 million more in 2019, more than doubling the gender gap of food insecurity.
Since last year, UNICEF has scaled up its efforts in the countries hardest hit by the global nutrition crisis, including Nigeria with an acceleration plan to prevent, detect, and treat wasting in women and children.
The report calls on governments, development and humanitarian partners and donors, civil society organisations and development actors to transform food, health and social protection systems for adolescent girls and women by:
Prioritising adolescent girls’ and women’s access to nutritious, safe and affordable diets, and protecting adolescent girls and women from ultra-processed foods through marketing restrictions, compulsory front-of-pack labelling and taxation.
Implementing policies and mandatory legal measures to expand large-scale food fortification of routinely consumed foods such as flour, cooking oil and salt to help reduce micronutrient deficiencies and anaemia in girls and women.
Ensuring adolescent girls and women in low- and middle-income countries have free access to essential nutrition services, both before and during pregnancy, and while breastfeeding, including ante-natal multiple micronutrient supplements.
Expanding access to social protection programmes for the most vulnerable adolescent girls and women, including cash transfers and vouchers to improve girls’ and women’s access to nutritious and diverse diets.
Accelerating the elimination of discriminatory gender and social norms such as child marriage and the inequitable sharing of food, household resources, income and domestic work.
