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Women's status and child health.

Article Excerpt
Nearly 30 per cent of the world's population is currently suffering from one or more forms of malnutrition. Approximately 840 million people are undernourished or chronically food insecure, and as many as 2.8 million children and 300,000 women die every year because of malnutrition in developing countries. Without rapid progress in reducing hunger, achieving the other MDGs related to poverty reduction, education, child mortality, maternal health, and disease will be impossible. The health and nutrition status of women and children were studied intensively within the WIDER twin projects titled 'Hunger and Food Security' (2004-5) and 'Gender and Food Security' (2006-7). This article, taken from these projects, reports the findings from a case study of Pakistan.

Womens' status and child-health

Food security, defined as access to sufficient food for an active and healthy life, is pivotal to early childhood development. Children's food security is a factor in economic growth since well-developed children are more productive as adults. Yet, malnutrition afflicts about a third of preschool aged children in less developed countries. It is associated with over half of worldwide child mortality. South Asia has the world's highest rate of child malnutrition, with 49.3 per cent of its to 5 year old children underweight despite...

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