latest data, external<\/a> from Unicef – a study that draws on data from more than 190 countries – finds the prevalence of underweight children aged 5-19 has declined since 2000, from nearly 13% to 9.2%.<\/p>\nObesity rates however have increased from 3% to 9.4%, meaning that almost one in 10 children are now obese. <\/p>\n
The number of overweight children – which includes those who are obese – has also increased to the extent that now 1 in five school-age children and adolescents are overweight.<\/p>\n
That’s roughly 391 million children across the globe, the study estimates.<\/p>\n
Obesity now exceeds underweight in all regions of the world, except sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.<\/p>\n
The highest rates of obesity among children and young people are found in some of the Pacific Island states, including Niue (38%), the Cook Islands (37%), and Nauru (33%).<\/p>\n
But many high-income countries also face a serious obesity problem. Among 5-19 year olds, 27% are obese in Chile, 21% in the United States, and 21% in the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
Unicef’s Catherine Russell says: “In many countries we are seeing the double burden of malnutrition \u2013 the existence of stunting and obesity. <\/p>\n
“This requires targeted interventions. <\/p>\n
“Nutritious and affordable food must be available to every child to support their growth and development. <\/p>\n
“We urgently need policies that support parents and caretakers to access nutritious and healthy foods for their children.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Undernutrition – which can manifest itself as wasting and stunting – remains a significant problem in the under-fives…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[105,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-412360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115178393187253151","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}