INEI: chronic malnutrition rose again after 12 years

Chronic malnutrition affected 11.7% of girls and boys under 5 years of age in the country, 0.2% more than in the bicentennial, while obesity and overweight rose 0.5%, according to the latest Demographic and Family Health Survey of the INEI.

In addition, anemia increased in the population aged 6 to 35 months (+42.2%), 3.6% higher than the previous year.

For the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the figures are worrisome —despite not being statistically significant— because they not only reflect a public health problem, but also affect the development of human capital and, therefore, the future of the country.

“After almost 12 years of having had a significant reduction in chronic malnutrition in the country, for the first time we are seeing an increasing trend. What is serious is that in the end it shows inequity within the country,” Lena Arias, WFP’s national officer for Nutrition, Public Health and Family Farming, told La República.

Where is the hunger?

The departments with the highest incidence of chronic malnutrition are Huancavelica (29.9%), Loreto (21.8%) and Amazonas (21.7%). While a lower incidence was recorded in Tacna (2.8%) and Moquegua (2.9%). In addition, iron insufficiency in the blood affected mainly boys and girls from Puno (67.2%), Ucayali (65.8%) and Huancavelica (65.0%).

On the other hand, the IRD researcher, Javier Herrera, warned that in 2022 there was also a rise in the caloric deficit —which measures whether the household has difficulties meeting its food needs—, since it went from 32.1% to 36.2 %; and that hunger is more aggressive in urban areas —he adds— because it affects 80% of their homes, which spend more daily compared to rural areas.

Mitigate the impacts

Arias maintains that the pandemic revealed that there was great inequality and vulnerability in the population, with a special focus on those who live in rural and peri-urban areas. Then, the international rise in fertilizers, inflation and the climate crisis have aggravated the situation.

“We have just passed the Yaku situation and the El Niño phenomenon is approaching us. We are facing different open fronts of factors that have generated this situation and that are definitely going to merit rethinking or at least intensifying the policies that are aimed at reducing malnutrition and food insecurity”, he said.

How to minimize the impact? Strengthening the interventions of the health and social protection systems such as Juntos, Qali Warma and Vacuna Más, as well as reassessing the expansion of their coverage, he adds.

The discussion must be accelerated on whether the common pots will be part of the food complementation program, promote access to fortified rice, and then there are the productive policies linked to family farming, because although they supply 80% of what we consume, they are population in poverty, so their access to markets at fair prices must be ensured, he concluded.

They propose to hire common pots

Congresswoman Rosselli Amuruz (Avanza País) wants the State to contract common pots for its social programs.

According to PL 5072, recently presented, public entities that require food services under the concession modality may directly contract common pots and soup kitchens.

“It is necessary to promote mechanisms for the economic reactivation of the most vulnerable sectors of our country (…) as a way of fighting poverty”, he sustains.

Let us remember that the common pots they gained more prominence during the pandemic.

The word

Lena Arias, WFP National Nutrition, Public Health and Family Farming Officer

“Of the US$10.5 billion that malnutrition has cost the country (as of 2019), 70% is due to lost productivity, which is key when measuring a country’s development.”

Evolution of child malnutrition in Peru