Nairobi — The next generation of Kenyans will be shorter, less intelligent, less productive and hardly capable of sustaining the country’s dream of a prosperous nation within the Vision 2030. Already a third of the children under five, translating to some 2.3 million, are stunted and perform poorly in school and even as adults, will be less productive. This will worsen in the next nine years. Stunted children may never regain the height lost as a result of the condition and most will never gain the corresponding body weight. It also leads to premature death because vital organs never fully develop during childhood. A new report by Unicef ranks Kenya at position 16 in the world and eighth in Africa, as one of the countries facing severe stunting among children under the age of five years. The study, which was conducted over a five-year period from 2003, says the country has a 35 per cent stunting prevalence, which translates to about 2.3 million children under the age of five years affected by poor nutrition. This means one in every three children celebrating their second birthday is stunted, raising concerns over future productivity for this generation, upon reaching adulthood just a few years before 2030. These children will hardly benefit from the free education programme because they enrol late, are always absent and have poor learning skills. Studies show that national productivity based on a people’s physical labour declines significantly for every one per cent reduction in adult height resulting from poor nutrition. While this is the case, the report says that if current levels remain unchanged, loss in productivity due to stunting alone could cost Kenya some Sh80 billion a year. It says Kenya is sharing 1.2 per cent of the global burden and that poor households are raising a bigger share of the stunted generation compared to middle income and rich households. According to the report, stunting, which is defined as a condition where a child is too short for his or her age, is likely to be accompanied by other deficiencies leading to underweight and wasted children. A child who is said to exhibit a wasted deficiency weighs lower compared to his or her age, while an underweight child has low weight compared to his or her age bracket. Unicef’s chief, at the nutrition section, Ms Noreen Prendiville, says Kenya is currently facing severe under nutrition especially in the arid and semi-arid areas, and could be the reason stunted children are on the rise. According to her, children who are undernourished are likely to show a life-long negative impact on their brain structure and function, a situation that science links to mental retardation. A section of the report says stunted children often post poor performances in school, heralding reduced productivity upon attaining adulthood, hence the mushrooming of low income households. At the same time, studies show that children from communities facing a deficiency in iodine can lose up to 13.5 of their Intelligence Quotient (IQ) points on average, compared to those from communities that are non deficient. But it is the possibility that mothers are failing to breastfeed their children that is sending alarming signals about the future of the nation. According to the report which was tracking progress on child and maternal nutrition in the world, less than three per cent of babies in Kenya are exclusively breastfed during the first six months. Data shows that Kenyan mothers are likely to stop breastfeeding children early denying them micro-nutrients such as vitamin A, iodine and iron, which science says are abundant in breast milk. “We are seeing a situation where mothers are not having flexible time to breastfeed due to economic challenges,” says Ms Pendiville. “The result will be a future generation that is not productive.” According to the report, poor breastfeeding causes 10,000 infant deaths every year, while both vitamin A deficiency and underweight children will each account for 300,000 deaths in nine years. The effects of malnutrition have already been felt as the country grappled with delayed enrolment in schools as well as absenteeism and poor learning ability among affected children. At the same time, iodine deficiency, which has been noted in 24.9 per cent of malnourished children, will lead to over 80,000 children being born with varying degrees of retardation every year. Thus in 20 years, the country could be faced with a weakened labour pool due to a generation that has not been well fed. By economic standards analysed in the report, the country stands to lose more than Sh200 billion in GDP by the year 2015, while the figure is expected to double by the year 2030, if the government does not address the nutrition situation. While launching a report that sought more commitment to address the vitamin and mineral deficiencies in September, Public Health and Sanitation Minister, Beth Mugo, said deficiencies were having a profound effect. “In our food crisis, it is the most vulnerable who will feel the effects of not having enough nutritional food to eat,” she said. But, only 0.4 per cent of resources allocated to the health sector budget went to nutrition, according to the 2009/10 Budget.
Source: Daily Nation
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