On Tuesday Save the Children published their ground-breaking Food for Thought report, all part of the current IF campaign. A report highlighting the direct linkage between poor and insubstantial diet with literacy and numeracy. Quite simply it makes for shocking reading. Chronically malnourished children are on average 20% less literate than their better nourished peers. Fact. And this is regardless of the quality or quantity of schooling on offer. Children malnourished in their first two years suffer irreversible damage, they grow up smaller and weaker and their brains may not develop fully, it’s known as ‘stunting’. Fact. And obviously the economic effects of both these facts are extremely far-reaching to societies. Findings suggest the global economic impact of malnutrition could be up to £80 billion. And this is only because children are hungry….
As someone with a passionate interest in nutrition and two small children myself this is truly frightening stuff. I can’t personally imagine my children suffering at school or being unable to read or write because they haven’t had satisfactory nourishment to concentrate. To me good nourishment has always been fundamental. To their very being. But then I’m fortunate to live in the developed first world.
On a final note it’s estimated that one in four (yes ONE in FOUR) of the World’s children are stunted due to the abysmal fact of malnutrition. And these children will have their life chances seriously and cruelly dashed because of this. Forever.
World leaders are meeting next week on June 8th in London for a Global Nutrition Summit. Ahead of this year’s G8 where the world COULD provide the necessary funding to transform lives and therefore economies . This really MUST be addressed. Seriously.
If you haven’t already done so I urge you to sign Save the Children’s IF Petition. Please. It’s very little effort and could make a real difference.
Chez Foti 
May 30th, 2013 at 11:55 am
Excellent post Louisa with which I wholeheartedly agree. Malnutrition in poor countries needs to be addressed immediately. But there is also the ‘malnutrition’ in wealthy countries that needs to be sorted : too much of the wrong kind of food, empty calories and above all too much sugar and chemicals which leads to neurological, psychological and behavioural problems. It seems paradoxical to say that an obese child can be malnourished, but unfortunately it’s rife… And don’t even get me started on dangerous vitamin D deficiencies caused by overuse of chemical sunblocks and not enough time spent outside.
May 31st, 2013 at 11:02 am
Oh I so agree with you Fiona. It’s a totally shameful travesty that the first world who have the resources, food and education are managing to literally kill themselves with terrible foods and chemicals. I’m actually in the process of setting up a brand new site of healthy and nutritious recipes for babies, toddlers, bigger kids and families.
May 30th, 2013 at 11:56 am
Thank you on behalf of myself and Save the Children for writing this post. Your interest in nutrition comes over strongly and helps this post be powerful.
May 30th, 2013 at 1:51 pm
This is something I am very concerned about, there are way to many malnourished children in the world today and so many countries that are able to help. I tried to sign up but couldn’t because I don’t have a postcode.
May 31st, 2013 at 11:03 am
Ah thanks for trying anyway! It’s a truly frightening situation.
May 30th, 2013 at 4:11 pm
Frightening statistics aren’t they? Thanks for the link to the petition… I’ll get over there now and sign it.
May 31st, 2013 at 11:03 am
Ah thanks Sarah.
June 2nd, 2013 at 9:06 am
Thanks so much for drawing people’s attention to this report and the IF campaign Lou. While there’s no overnight solution for tackling global food poverty, by making as much noise as we can about this issue and getting the leaders of the G8 to put it to the top of their priorities list when the gather for the summit in Northern Ireland, we will certainly be off to the best start we can…