Sharjah24 – AFP: Nearly half the world's population suffer from poor nutrition linked to too much or not enough food, a global assessment said Tuesday with wide-ranging impacts on health and the planet.
The Global Nutrition Report (GNR), a yearly survey and analysis of the latest data on nutrition and related health issues, found that 48 percent of people currently eat either too little or too much -- resulting in them being overweight, obese or underweight.
At current rates, the report finds, the world will fail to meet eight out of nine nutrition targets set by the World Health Organization for 2025.
These include reducing child wasting (when children are too thin for their height) and child stunting (when they are too short for their age), and also adult obesity.
The report estimates nearly 150 million children under five years old are stunted, more than 45 million are wasted and nearly 40 million are overweight.
It also finds more than 40 percent of adults (2.2 billion people) are now overweight or obese.
"Avoidable deaths due to poor diets have grown by 15 percent since 2010 and poor diets are now responsible for a quarter of all adult deaths," Chair of the GNR's Independent Expert Group Renata Micha said.
"Our global findings show that our diets have not improved over the last ten years and are now a major threat to people's health and to the planet."
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