A mother in Nigeria pretends to cook food in a pot of water to calm her hungry children. In Houston, another mom can’t get to the food bank because the family’s car was flooded by Hurricane Beryl in July. A dad in India says, "Every day, from dawn to dusk, the one thought that floods my heart and mind is that the kids shouldn't ever go to sleep hungry.
I'm painfully aware of how we're falling short." One in four children under age 5 worldwide is unable to access a nutritious diet, according to a report by UNICEF. That adds up to 181 million young children in a state of what the U.
N. agency calls "severe child food poverty." Rising food prices are part of the problem, found the report, which compiled data from 137 low- and middle-income countries.
So are conflicts, climate crises, harmful food-marketing strategies and disruptions in food supply. Low-income countries have a hard time regulating aggressive advertising of processed snack foods, experts told NPR . As a result, even when families have the opportunity to eat well, many children end up eating unhealthy foods that are cheaper than nutrient-rich options.
Child food poverty is particularly harmful in early childhood — threatening survival, physical growth and cognitive development, according to UNICEF. "We know that these children don't do well at school," says Harriet Torlesse, the report's lead author and a nutrition specialist at UNICEF, who spoke to NPR after the report came out earlier this year. "They earn l.
