Malnutrition affects all regions, age, socioeconomic groups and sexes. Countries are facing multiple forms of malnutrition, and no country is untouched by at least one form of malnutrition: stunting, wasting, overweight and obesity, micronutrient deficiencies.
Worldwide, 149.2 million children under 5 years of age are stunted, 45.4 million are wasted and 38.9 million are overweight. Over 40% of all men and women (2.2 billion people) are now overweight or obese and 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020, and close to 193 million people are acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance across 53 countries/territories.
Overall, the progress to tackle all forms of malnutrition remains slow, and it is expected that the number of malnourished people increases in low- and middle-income countries, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the multiplication of conflicts and extreme climate events. Moreover, the impact of the Russia’s war against Ukraine on food inflation further undermines people’s ability to afford a healthy diet.
Scaling up effective nutrition interventions, and incorporating a gender and life-cycle approach, are essential actions to tackle all forms of malnutrition. Nutrition-sensitive interventions have enormous potential to enhance the effectiveness of nutrition-specific actions.
Comprehensive and actionable nutrition data, to inform policies and actions, are of upmost importance and the Join Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) has been working on the development of adequate indicators to improve malnutrition surveillance (e.g. The Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women of reproductive age indicator).
In its EU Action Plan on Nutrition (2015-2025) the European Commission committed to support partner countries in reducing the number of stunted children under the age of five by at least 7 million by 2025 and to ensure the allocation of EUR 3.5 billion between 2014 and 2020 to improve nutrition in developing countries. The annual progress reports can be consulted here. To sustain the momentum, the EU announced a new pledge – EUR 2.5 billion for the period 2021-2024- at the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Tokyo in 2021.
As a follow-up of the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, international Coalitions for Actions have emerged to support the transformation of food systems. Among them, two specifically relate to nutrition: the School Meals Coalition and the Coalition for Healthy Diets. The European Commission is a member of these Coalitions.
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has developed the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Knowledge Gateway with numerous briefs on nutrition and diet-related topics.
