GIRLS are more likely than boys to experience malnutrition and hunger, resulting in stunted growth, leaving school early, and poorer long-term health, a new study suggests.
More than one quarter of the world’s population could not find enough food to meet their nutritional needs last year. Sixty per cent of these were women and girls, according to figures from the UN. The most women suffering from lack of nutrients are found in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but, in every region of the world, women are at higher risk of malnutrition.
One billion girls and women suffer from different forms of malnutrition — which include being under- or overweight, stunted growth, or having iron-deficiency anaemia. Girls can be both overweight and suffer malnutrition, owing to the prevalence of ultra-processed foods (UPFs); in high-income countries, UPFs now make up 80 per cent of diets, and, in middle-income countries, 30 per cent.
The gender gap in malnutrition more than doubled during the pandemic, the study, Breaking the Cycle: The cost of malnutrition to girls, published this month by World Vision, says.
A preference for boys in some cultures means that girls are more likely to be hungry and malnourished than their brothers, and hungry girls are more likely to drop out of school, earn less, marry earlier, and give birth younger. One study in Ethiopia found that adolescent girls were more likely to report being food insecure than boys living in the same household.
Girls are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition during puberty and pregnancy, and it increases risks during childbirth; and 80 per cent of breastfeeding women and girls have inadequate food. Their babies are also more likely to be born underweight, perpetuating the cycle.
World Vision said that the cost of malnutrition in women and girls to the global economy was $1.6 trillion in lost productivity and potential.
Sozinha José, in Mozambique, is affected by drought and hunger. The 16-year-old dropped out of school, owing to hunger. She has lost her father and mother, and lives with her grandmother and cousin.
She said: “To survive, my grandmother and I go to the river to look for water lily tubers to cook and eat. Some days, we don’t manage to find the tubers. In those days we have nothing to eat.”
Dana Buzducea, of World Vision International, said: “The number of people going to bed hungry and living with the long-term effects of malnutrition shot up during the pandemic, and has not gone down. This is after years of success in reducing hunger. People who cannot feed their children are left with little choice but to leave their countries and seek survival elsewhere.
“If we do not act now, every year more people will be forced into migration, millions of girls will miss out on their education, trillions of dollars will be lost in economic potential, and young mothers and their children will be at increased risk of death. Those that survive will pay lifelong costs for malnutrition that, if not addressed, will be passed on to their own children in a vicious cycle.”
The report has been published as part of World Vision’s “Enough” campaign for an end to child hunger.