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| A young girl holding an orange next to her face from a Township in South Africa. Image: © @Unicef South Africa/2018/Prinsloo |
South Africa is considered the most developing country in the African context. It is viewed to be competitive in the Global economic market. However, like many developing countries in the world, Malnutrition is a major problem.
According to Unicef, acute malnutrition is a key underlying cause of child mortality in South Africa, accounting for one-third of all child in-hospital fatalities.
Children with acute malnutrition are known to have weakened immune systems and are vulnerable to infections that can lead to mortality. If they survive, they are more prone to stunting and long-term developmental impairments.
In South Africa, 27% of children are stunted, which means they will most likely not attain their full growth and development potential due to permanent physical and cognitive damage caused by chronic dietary deficiency.
According to the Global Nutrition Report South Africa is on track to fulfill two nutrition objectives for mothers, infants, and young children (MIYCN). There has been little progress toward the goal of lowering anaemia among women of reproductive age, with 30.5% of women aged 15 to 49 years afflicted. Meanwhile, little progress has been made in meeting the low birth weight objective, with 14.2% of newborns having a low birth weight. There is inadequate information to evaluate South Africa's progress toward the preferential breastfeeding target; however, the most recent prevalence data show that 31.6% of infants aged 0 to 5 months are predominately breastfed.
South Africa has made little progress toward meeting the stunting objective, with 21.4% of children under the age of five afflicted, which is lower than the African region average (30.7%). South Africa is on track to meet the wasting target, with 3.4% of children under the age of five afflicted, which is lower than the African area average (6.0%). The frequency of overweight children under the age of five is 11.6%, and South Africa is "on track" to keep the percentage from rising.
South Africa has made only little progress in meeting diet-related noncommunicable disease (NCD) objectives. Obesity affects 42.9% of adult women and 18.2% of adult males over the age of 18.
Malnutrition slows than the country's progress because young children who must be economically active are unable to perform in schools or think critically. It is unclear how will South Afruc meet it's target given the country's ongoing socio-economic issues. The recent cabinet reshuffling affected the Rand's strength against the US Dollar. Not to forget that South Africa was grey listed. What will be happening with the progress it had made?
