The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that as Afghanistan approaches the peak of its malnutrition season, approximately 3.7 million children under the age of five are at risk of malnutrition.
In a report released on Sunday, July 12, UNICEF said that food and nutrition insecurity remains one of the main drivers of rising child malnutrition in Afghanistan and called for urgent action to prevent the crisis from worsening.
The agency stressed that protecting the diets of young children, especially those under the age of two, and expanding preventive nutrition services must be treated as top priorities.
According to UNICEF’s report, titled “Too Little, Too Late: The Young Child Diet Crisis in Afghanistan,” this is the first time that child malnutrition and household food insecurity have been assessed simultaneously among the same group of children across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.
The findings indicate that reduced dietary diversity, skipped meals, and child hunger are among the earliest warning signs that families are falling into a malnutrition crisis.
Source: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).