Unit 2: Health Effects of Complementary Feeding

The immediate consequences of poor nutrition during early infancy and childhood include significant morbidity and mortality, delayed mental and motor development, intellectual performance, work capacity, reproductive outcomes and overall health during adolescence and adulthood. Additionally, malnourished female children face greater odds of giving birth to malnourished, low birth weight infants (Dewey et al. 2003). Many experts agree that suboptimal complementary feeding practices and micronutrient deficiencies are major contributors to malnutrition, morbidity and mortality in children (Black et al. 2008). It is thought that more than 200 million children under five years of age fail to reach their cognitive potential because of malnutrition and other related factors such as poverty, poor health and lack of care during infancy and childhood (Grantham-McGregor 2007). It is known that children in developing countries are insufficiently fed during infancy, with as little as 36% of children exclusively breastfeeding until six months of age (Lutter et al. 2011). To compound inadequate breast milk intakes, children aged 6-23 months do not receive adequate and diverse diets. As little as 50% percent eat the minimum number of required meals, and less than 33% of children in developing countries meet the minimum requirement for dietary diversity (Lutter et al. 2011).

Table 3 below shows the percentage of children dying from underweight, stunting and wasting and the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for children under five years of age, globally.

Table 3: Childhood Deaths and DALYs Attributed to Malnutrition as Demonstrated by Anthropometric Measurements

Source: Black et al. 2008, reprinted from The Lancet with permission from Elsevier