Staff Reporter :
Two in every three children under five in Bangladesh are living in food poverty, according to UNICEF’s new report Child Food Poverty: Nutrition Deprivation in Early Childhood. This alarming statistic means that about 10 million Bangladeshi children consume fewer than the minimum five food groups recommended by UNICEF and WHO for adequate nutrition.
Child food poverty severely impacts all children, with especially profound effects during early childhood. The report highlights that one in five children under five in Bangladesh lives in severe food poverty, surviving on just one or two food groups a day. Children without an adequately diverse diet are up to 50% more likely to experience wasting, a severe form of malnutrition.
Bangladesh is among the 20 countries that account for almost two-thirds (65%) of the total number of children experiencing severe child food poverty globally. The consequences of an insufficient diet can last a lifetime: children deprived of good nutrition in early childhood tend to do less well in school, earn less in adulthood, and remain trapped in a cycle of poverty and deprivation.
“Good nutrition is the bedrock of children’s survival, growth, and development. Families play a critical role in ensuring that children are fed nutritious foods, but they cannot do it alone. They must be supported through a systematic approach – leveraging the potential of food, health, and social protection systems – and driven by decisive political will and targeted investment,” stated Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh.
“By transforming food systems in Bangladesh to make diverse and healthy foods accessible and affordable, we can help ensure that every child has a strong start for a powerful beginning,” he said.
UNICEF identifies several factors fueling the child food poverty crisis in Bangladesh, including families’ inability to afford nutritious foods, parents’ lack of awareness of positive child feeding habits, the rampant marketing and consumption of nutrient-poor ultra-processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, and increased climate-related disasters that affect the food system.
Climate change-related disasters also reduce the availability of fresh foods, lower agricultural productivity, and drive food prices to record-high levels.
To combat child food poverty and malnutrition, UNICEF is supporting the Government of Bangladesh in delivering essential nutrition services. This includes supporting community health and nutrition workers to counsel parents and families on child feeding and care practices and activating social protection systems to address poverty through social transfers, including cash and food assistance.
UNICEF calls on the Government of Bangladesh, civil society, donors, the private sector, and other stakeholders to urgently leverage health systems to deliver essential nutrition services to prevent and treat child malnutrition. Additionally, UNICEF stresses the importance of investing in the capacity of community health and nutrition workers, especially in remote and underserved areas, to provide timely and high-quality counselling to parents and caregivers on recommended child feeding practices and care.
UNICEF urges the government to ensure that policy and regulatory frameworks are established across the food, health, and social protection systems while strengthening efforts to address the drivers of child food poverty. This includes protecting all children from unhealthy food environments, such as the unregulated marketing of ultra-processed foods and beverages.