Nutrition

Nutrition is the good we get from all the food we eat and it helps our bodies work. Food is made up of different types of nutrients that contribute to our food being nutritious! These nutrients include carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals and water.
If our bodies fail to get all the nutrients they need this is called malnutrition. If a person suffers from malnutrition they can be more likely to catch diseases and it can effect the functions of their body such as brain, eyesight, organs, height, weight, as well as the formation of body parts if the child is still in their mother's womb.
Children queue for lunch at a primary school in Zimbabwe© UNICEF/HQ02-0298/Giacomo Pirozzi
In the developing world the biggest concerns often lie with the lack of vitamins and minerals, as well as the access to clean drinking water. For information on water see our resource, water and sanitation. In this resource we will focus on vitamins and minerals. When a person lacks these they are said to be suffering from micronutrient malnutrition.Malnutrition can occur in developed countries but is most likely to be seen in children in developing countries. It is believed that almost one third of children in developing countries are malnourished (Source: www.unicef.org). Breastfeeding is a vital source of micronutrients for babies.The solution to a lack of nutrients is to improve people's diet. This can be done naturally – this is the ideal, however, often people do not have access to the right types of food, and in some cases any food at all! As a result groups of people are fed 'supplementary food', this is food extra to their diets which contain the nutrients they lack. Another method of providing the needed nutrients in countries where a population as a whole is lacking a certain vitamin or mineral it is added to a staple food such as flour or salt, this is called fortification.
A woman sits holding bare sorghum stalks in a field affected by drought© UNICEF/HQ02-0311/Giacomo Pirozzi
It is important to realise an inadequate supply of food is often caused by war (where people working in fields are unable to work for fear of violence or landmines, or people have had to flee their homes and so leave food supplies) or poverty (where food is available but people do not have the money to buy it or land to grow it). The situation can be especially bad if a country has suffered a combination of factors, for example, a drought and a civil war.
As well as the shortage of food, disease also causes malnutrition. Diseases such as diarrhoea cause the body to loose essential nutrients, by flushing them out of the body. They can take a long time to replace and may affect a child's growth and development. Another important fact is that malnutrition is increasing in developed countries. This is caused by people choosing to eat the wrong types of food, not by a lack of adequate supply.