Guardian: Malnutrition identified as root cause of 3.1 million deaths among children: Lancet

Malnutrition is the underlying cause of death for at least 3.1 million children, accounting for 45% of all deaths among children under the age of five and stunting growth among a further 165 million, according to a set of reports released ahead of a nutrition summit in London.

The shocking figures, published in the Lancet on Thursday, emerged asworld leaders prepare to meet on Saturday to pledge extra money for nutrition, ahead of the G8 summit of industrialised countries on 17 June.

“The Lancet series today shocked us into a new truth: undernutrition is an even deadlier threat to child survival than we ever thought,” said Molly Kinder, director of agriculture and nutrition policy at ONE, the anti-poverty group. “These alarming facts are now irrefutable. Undernutrition is responsible for 600,000 more child deaths each year than was previously realised.”

The latest Lancet reports follow the journal’s series in 2008, which helped put nutrition on the development agenda.

“Countries will not be able to break out of poverty or sustain economic advances when so much of their population is unable to achieve the nutritional security that is needed for a healthy and productive life,” said Professor Robert Black, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who led the Lancet research.

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