World Child Hunger Facts

Nutritious foods in adequate amounts are essential for everyone but particularly for children. In early childhood, adequate nutrition can ensure healthy growth, proper organ formation and function, a strong immune system, and neurological and cognitive development. Nutrition, too, has increasingly been recognized as a basic pillar for social and economic development. Well-nourished people can learn new skills, think critically and contribute to their communities. Improving child nutrition impacts global, national and regional child survival, primary education, women’s empowerment, and maternal and child health rates.

On the flip side, child malnutrition hurts cognitive function and contributes to poverty by impeding people’s ability to lead productive lives. Poverty is the leading cause of hunger, but poverty also results from hunger, in a cyclical relationship. In spite of the importance of childhood nutrition and significant progress in the last 25 years, global childhood hunger is still rampant. (Source: Gain, 2015)