Nutritional status of children

The nutritional status of Bangladesh children, as depicted in an International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) report, continues to be grim despite all the achievements in the country's human development indicators. The report reveals that 22 per cent of babies in Bangladesh are born underweight, nearly 44 per cent of its children are anaemic and more than 45 per cent of the new-born babies are not kept entirely dependent on breast milk for the first six months. What is more painful is that every two out of five five-year-old children are experiencing stunted physical growth. The IFPRI report that deals with the issues of global nutritional situation will be published formally prior to the scheduled start of the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this week.
It is undeniably that, with a marked improvement in poverty situation, the overall nutritional status of the population has improved, albeit at a slow pace. But there has not been any remarkable progress in areas of child nutrition for a number of reasons. Firstly, more than one-third of the population still lives below the poverty line and they find it hard to arrange for themselves two square meals a day. Secondly, coming out of the poverty circle does not make the poor families resourceful to consume enough of nutritional foods. And thirdly, poor and low-income families, in most cases, do neither have the means nor the all-important awareness about the need for consuming nutritional foods.  
The first and foremost condition for a mother giving birth to a healthy baby is very much connected to her own health and nutritional conditions. It will be foolhardy to expect development of a healthy baby in a malnourished mother's womb. In poor and low-income families, the pregnant mothers usually do not receive the much-needed care, in terms of food and other nutritional requirements. Apart from the lack of awareness, the financial inability remains to be the major handicap in this respect. These families cannot provide pregnant women with nutritional foods even if they intend to do so. Nor can they afford nutritional foods that would ensure healthy growth of their children. However, some awareness about nutritional value of different food items could be helpful for them.
So, getting rid of nutritional problems for a poor country like Bangladesh would continue to be a daunting challenge for policymakers and poor and low-income families as well. The government and the others concerned cannot help the poor to improve their income levels overnight. But they can take up appropriate projects and programmes to that effect and ensure their proper implementation to help the poor become better-off, financially. Yet the government and the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can at least help raise the level of awareness among the poor and low income families about the need for ensuring consumption of nutritional foods, particularly by children and pregnant mothers. It is important to tell them that the money they can afford is enough to meet their minimum nutritional requirement provided they choose the right kind of low-cost food items.