The United Nations is concerned that this generation of children could
be less well-nourished than the previous, living in developed nations
hit by devastating economic crisis.
David Nabarro, UN Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition
told the Huffington Post UK that nutrition of the next generation was a
key concern for the international body, rather than just the amount of
food a child was given to eat.
Speaking at the Economist's Feeding the World conference in London this
week, Nabarro said that the generational divide would be something
looked at "closely" at a conference on the subject in Rome in November.
"The natural assumption is when a country is rich, the GDP is good, you
imagine everyone is well-nourished, possibly too well-nourished," he
said.
"But the differences are begin to worry us, and I would advise people to
be on the look out for quite serious pockets of people whose nutrition
is substandard, where social systems are not working as well as they
might be."
There is a caveat to that, Nabarro added, saying it was always
"difficult to say things are worse now than before, because we don't
have to go many years back in Europe to find quite major periods of time
with widespread poor nutrition. But it is something to look out for, as
we move forward."
Nabarro said that he hoped the international community will move "beyond
talking about food security to talking about nutrition security".
"There are 800-900 million people who don't access the food they need,
but there are even more people who do not access the nutrients they
need, particularly between conception and a child's second birthday," he
said.
Source; Huffington Post
