How climate change can leave children malnourished

Sumaiya’s moving story shows how climate change can ultimately affect children’s access to nutritious food.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00cKGt9v1as&feature=emb_logo 

 

Today, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. Urbanization has caused a rapid shift in diet and lifestyle, with more ultra-processed foods and less physical activity. The result is a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity among city dwellers, as well as higher rates of diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. By 2050, 70 per cent of the world’s adolescents will live in cities, more exposed to the marketing of unhealthy foods and more vulnerable to diet-related diseases than ever before. More and more women are joining the job market, making up nearly 40 per cent of the world’s formal labour force. Yet, almost everywhere, mothers remain responsible for most child feeding and care. They often receive little support from families, employers or society at large. This leaves too many mothers to face the impossible choice of feeding their children well or earning a steady income. Extreme weather events like floods, storms, droughts and extreme heat have collectively doubled since 1990, and children are disproportionately affected. They are the most susceptible to waterborne diseases, which increase their risk of malnutrition and death. Climate shocks disrupt food production and food access for rural families – with drought alone causing 80 per cent of damage and losses in agriculture. In areas where people rely on a single staple crop like maize, a shock to food production can wipe out the entire food supply. Increasingly, the disruption from climate change is forcing families to abandon their farms and move to urban areas, where processed foods and sedentary lifestyles are commonplace. And because food systems account for almost a third of greenhouse gas emissions, our shift to industrial food production is only exacerbating global warming.