Defone Economic consequences of malnutrition?

Figure explains the economic consequences of malnutrition. You would note from the Figure that the economic productivity of the individual, influences the household income, which influences the household food availability and food allocation in the family. When household real income falls as a result of low economic productivity, families have less food available for different members of the families. Thus food consumption for the different members of the family falls, In our culture, it is mostly the women and the children who suffer the most as a result of poor availability of food at home compared with other members of the family. Poor food consumption contributes to low nutritional status of the family members especially the mother and the child. Mothers with poor nutritional status have low capacity to take care of the child, This insult to the child has long term consequences in terms of growth, cognitive capabilities, morbidities and mortality etc. This results in loss of productivity in school. For adults, poor nutritional status leads to reduced stamina and endurance and low physical capacity at work, thus contributing to reduce economic productivity. So this loss of productivity influences economic status of the family that can further deteriorate or prevent improvement of the nutritional status. This vicious cycle persists unless strong steps are taken to increase the household real income and improve the nutritional status.

Figure: Economic consequences of malnutrition

We can now conclude that loss in the productivity of individuals lead to a loss in productivity of the nation as a whole and so nations cannot progress. This brings us to the issue that we need to assess and analyze the situation and plan and implement interventions to improve the nutrition situation. For doing this, we need to come up with some indicators which can help us track changes in the situation as we move towards our goals.