The preceding section discussed the causes of malnutrition.  Here we consider some of its consequences. Malnutrition is strongly linked to many different forms of disease, and thus to death.  It also inhibits mental and physical development, especially when children suffer from malnutrition.  Malnutrition in childhood can affect not only the individual's development as an adult, but also the health and well being of the affected individual's children and even grandchildren.

The most dramatic impact is on mortality. The major international data-gathering agencies—WHO, FAO, and UNICEF—do not provide estimates of the numbers of people who die from malnutrition each year. However, there is a strong linkage. Urban Jonsson of UNICEF says "about 55 % of the 13 million under-five deaths in the world each year are the deaths of children who were malnourished. And of those 7 million nutrition-related deaths, some 80 % are the deaths of children who were only mildly or moderately malnourished (Jonsson 1994, p. 7)." These are nutrition-related deaths, and are not entirely due to malnutrition. This account was based largely on a study of the linkage by David Pelletier and his colleagues. It showed that in the data for 53 developing countries "56% of child deaths were attributable to malnutrition’s potentiating effects . . . (Pelletier 1995)." There is a strong association between protein-energy malnutrition and children's mortality. Studies in Latin America suggest that in almost half of children's deaths malnutrition is a significant underlying cause. In Indonesia, "nutritional deficiency has been identified as an associated cause in 16 percent of the deaths of children aged 1-4 (Child . . . Indonesia 1985, p. 1)."

Children who are severely malnourished in terms of anthropometric measures are more likely to die. For children who are mildly or moderately malnourished, however, the prospects are not so grim. In the United States, there is little linkage between malnutrition and children's mortality because the malnutrition is rarely severe.

The point that children who are severely malnourished are more likely to die may appear to contradict the finding in Pelletier’s study that, of the child deaths associated with malnutrition, "83% of these were attributable to mild-to-moderate as opposed to severe malnutrition". The explanation is that worldwide there are far more children who are mildly or moderately malnourished than there are children who are severely malnourished. Thus, even though the odds of dying for a mildly or moderately malnourished child are much lower than the odds for a severely malnourished child, there will be more deaths of mildly and moderately children associated with malnutrition simply because there are so many more such children.

It takes much more effort to save children who are severely malnourished than to save those who are mildly or moderately malnourished. This has important implications for policy. If we are concerned with saving lives, in the face of scarce resources, it may be wise to focus efforts on those who are mildly or moderately malnourished, rather than on those who are severely malnourished.

Continue to II-f. Food and Nutrition Security

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Subsection II-e last updated on September 27, 1999