Generation Nutrition: tackling an everyday emergency

By: Ben Hobbs, Campaign Manager, Generation Nutrition

Imagine what it’s like to watch your child die, simply because you can’t give them enough food to eat, or clean water to drink.

For the parents of the estimated one million children who die every year from acute malnutrition, this is a horrifying, everyday reality.

The Generation Nutrition campaign was launched on 24th April by a group of civil society organisations who are determined to see this situation turned around. We are calling on governments to take urgent action to end child deaths from acute malnutrition.

We are partnering with World Vision during the Global Week of Action to help raise awareness of the importance of giving every child the best start in life and – in those crucial early years - be free of life-threatening diseases and conditions like acute malnutrition.

Acute malnutrition: an everyday emergency

As many as 1 in 12 children under five across the world today suffer from acute malnutrition.

A child is acutely malnourished when his or her weight drops to such a low level that they are at risk of dying. The immediate causes of the condition are a lack of food and infection.

A ‘vicious circle’ exists between malnutrition and infection: a malnourished child is more prone to catching an infection because their immune system is weaker and a child with an infection cannot properly absorb nutrients and may lose their appetite.

Most deaths from acute malnutrition involve a link with infectious diseases like diarrhoea, malaria, tuberculosis and pneumonia.

Acute malnutrition doesn’t only happen at times of conflict, or natural disasters. In fact, most children affected by it can be found in the quiet villages and bustling cities of relatively stable countries like India and Kenya. Up to now, governments have focused mainly on assisting dangerously malnourished children in times of crisis. One of the messages of our campaign is that governments need to address the problem in both the crisis situations and these more ‘everyday’ environments.

One of the main ways of doing this is by ensuring that treatment for acute malnutrition is routinely offered by the national health service in the countries which are most-affected. Treatment is a straightforward process – most children can be treated at home with ready-to-use therapeutic food, with only occasional visits to a local health centre.

Undernutrition overall contributes to nearly half of all preventable deaths in children under the age of five. That’s why, it’s critical that we step up action on tackling child malnutrition now, if we are going to achieve our goal of helping all children around the world to ‘survive five’.'Undernutrition overall contributes to nearly half of all preventable deaths in children under the age of five'

We’ve launched a petition calling on governments around the world to prioritise nutrition and to set an ambitious target on acute malnutrition when they decide the new set of global goals on poverty in September.

People are already mobilising in Kenya, the Philippines, France, the UK and Spain to be a part of Generation Nutrition and take our message to leaders at the national and international level over the coming months.

Our vision is of a generation of children free from the risks of life-threatening malnutrition. The more voices that join us the greater our impact will be – together, we can make sure that millions more children get the chance they deserve to survive and thrive in the years to come.

You can join our movement on Facebook, Twitter and at generation-nutrition.org.