Programs Nutrition Tables News Room Sign Up to Keep Informed Malnutrition is largely a silent and invisible emergency, exacting a terrible toll on children and their families. The result of multiple causes, including a lack of food, common and preventable infections, and inadequate care and unsafe water, malnutrition plays a role in more than half of the nearly 12 million deaths each year of children under five in developing countries.
Good nutrition has a profound impact on children's long-term survival, growth, and development.
It can make all the difference between a healthy child with hope for the future and one who is underdeveloped and unable to live up to his or her potential. It not only affects the future of a child, but that of whole societies, countries, and even regions of the world. Good nutrition from an early age is vital for a child's proper mental and physical development. Eliminating malnutrition among expectant mothers, for example, would reduce disabilities among their infants by almost one third. The world's understanding of nutrition has grown greatly over the past decade most importantly, we've learned more about the role of micronutrients in child development, especially vitamin A and iodine.