Stunted growth

Stunted growth
Other namesStunting, nutritional stunting
World map in 2016: Share of children who are stunted
SpecialtyPediatrics

Stunted growth, also known as stunting or linear growth failure, is defined as impaired growth and development manifested by low height-for-age.[1] It is a primary manifestation of malnutrition (or more precisely chronic undernutrition) and recurrent infections, such as diarrhea and helminthiasis, in early childhood and even before birth, due to malnutrition during fetal development brought on by a malnourished mother. The definition of stunting according to the World Health Organization (WHO) is for the "height-for-age" value to be less than two standard deviations of the median of WHO Child Growth Standards.[2] Stunted growth is usually associated with poverty, unsanitary environmental conditions, maternal undernutrition, frequent illness, and/or inappropriate feeding practice and care during early years of life.

Prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years by region (2020-2022)

As of 2020, an estimated 149 million children under 5 years of age, are stunted worldwide.[3] More than 85% of the world's stunted children live in Africa and Asia.[4] Once established, stunting and its effects typically become permanent. Stunted children may never regain the height lost as a result of stunting, and most children will never gain the corresponding body weight. Living in an environment where many people defecate in the open due to lack of sanitation, is an important cause of stunted growth in children, for example in India.[5]

  1. ^ "Malnutrition". www.who.int. Retrieved 2023-02-15.
  2. ^ "Nutrition Landscape Information System (NLiS)". WHO. Retrieved 12 November 2014.
  3. ^ nina (2022-07-06). "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022". UNICEF DATA. Retrieved 2023-02-15.
  4. ^ Local Burden of Disease Child Growth Failure Collaborators (January 2020). "Mapping child growth failure across low- and middle-income countries". Nature. 577 (7789): 231–234. Bibcode:2020Natur.577..231L. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1878-8. PMC 7015855. PMID 31915393.
  5. ^ Spears, D. (2013). How much international variation in child height can sanitation explain? - Policy research working paper. The World Bank, Sustainable Development Network, Water and Sanitation Program