IN his inaugural address to the nation, Prime Minister Imran

Khan spoke about Pakistan’s appalling rates of stunting,

apparently the third highest in the world. Stunting is a lifelong
impairment which cannot be reversed; it increases the risk of
contracting non-infectious chronic diseases in children. During
that speech, Mr Khan held out X-ray scans of the brain of a
stunted child next to that of a healthy one, showing the visible
difference in size between the two. The contrasting images
underscored that stunting is not only a physical impairment, it is
an intellectual one as well, with grave consequences for the
nation’s future. There are several reasons for the prevalence of
stunting in our region, and all are linked to the high rates of
poverty, the lack of access to proper healthcare and poor hygiene
practices in the general population, and the secondary status of
women in society. Stunting is caused when children do not have
access to a nutritious diet in the first two years of life; when
mothers are malnourished before and during pregnancy; when
proper sanitary precautions are not practised within the
household; and because of inadequate psychosocial stimulation.
While it was encouraging then to see the prime minister put a
large-scale but largely ignored health concern at the top of his
agenda when he came into power, it seems to have since fallen
out of the list of priorities.

Now, the government and Unicef have come out with the National
Nutrition Survey 2018, which sheds some light on the topic. According to
the report, the highest rates of stunting occur in KP (merged with tribal
areas), with 48.3pc of children under the age of five suffering from the
condition. Second worst were Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan (46.6pc
each), followed by Sindh (45.5pc). In Azad Kashmir and Punjab, the rate of
stunting stood at 39.3pc and 36.4pc respectively. Meanwhile, Islamabad
had the lowest at 32.6pc. Sadly, even at its lowest, the figure is far too high.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2019