20% Of Lankan Population Malnourished

By Charitha Ratwatte -June 25, 2013 

Charitha Ratwatte

Malnutrition will cost the world US$ 125 billion

The politician responsible for national health care of the people has gone on record saying that over 20% of the population appears to suffer from malnutrition. He was speaking at a Pulasthi Knowledge Foundation event in Polonnaruwa.

Recent research by Save the Children in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam that infants who do not receive the necessary nutrients in the first 1,000 days of life, from conception to their second birthday, will suffer from developmental brain deficiencies that hold back their learning ability. This will cause a serious obstacle to the progress, both social and economic, of countries and communities suffering from severe malnutrition.

The Save the Children studies monitored 3,000 cases, showed that children who were malnourished scored 7% lower on maths tests and were 19% less likely to read a simple sentence by the time they were eight years old. They were also 12% less likely to be able to write a simple sentence and 13% likely to be in the correct grade in their school.

Save the Children points out that the problems of malnutrition have been ‘under-recognised and underappreciated’ by nations and communities which have traditionally relied on small holder small scale agricultural holdings and lower skilled sectors at the bottom of the economic ladder. This certainly seems to be the problem we are having.

It is not that people who are malnourished and stunted will not be able to get through a basic education; most of them will do so. But as countries need to improve the skills of the workforce into more technical and technological fields, limitations of capacity will emerge. Certainly at hi tech and tertiary levels there would be huge drawbacks. There will be a real constraint to a population’s enhancement of skills and capacity.

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