Health News
Child low weight and obesity are focus of new WHO push
May 23, 2011, 18:29 GMT
New York - Governments would be required to set priorities for the nutrition and health of mothers and children under a draft plan proposed by the World Health Organization that addresses low weights as well as obesity, the UN said Monday.
UN members and development partners would be called to implement the plan once the WHO adopts it at the close of its annual meeting in Geneva. The programme aims to improve nutrition and health care of an estimated 100 million children under 5 who were underweight in 2010.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon unveiled the draft plan as he presided over discussion of the measures, particularly in low-income countries. A UN plan known as the Millennium Development Goals has long called for deep cuts in maternal and child mortality by 2015.
WHO statistics show that in addition to the 100 million children at risk, another 170 million children worldwide were stunted last year, suffering from anaemia and deficiency in vitamin A. Other health issues are overweight mothers, which complicate births, and obese children.
WHO said the new programme will address priorities to assist child malnutrition, low birth weights, growing rates of child obesity, maternal malnutrition and obesity and the consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiencies for mothers and children.
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