Both hunger and obesity stalk our children

FOR THE FIRST TIME in history, childhood obesity worldwide has overtaken the problem of being undernourished.

- By Dinesh Arora and Nina Badgaiyan

Among older children and adolescents aged five to 19, overweight and obesity more than doubled between 2000 and 2022, rising from 194 million to 391 million. Lowand middle-income countries now account for more than 80% of these cases.

In Asia and the Pacific, nearly one in 10 children remains underweight even as obesity rates are climbing in East and Southeast Asia, showing how undernutrition and obesity increasingly coexist within the same region.

Food environments are central to this crisis. The number of people consuming fast food and sugary drinks nearly equals those consuming the five recommended food groups, according to the 2024 International Food Policy Research Institute report.

Weak food safety systems add further risks, with unsafe food causing 600 million illnesses and 420,000 deaths every year — many of them children. Marketing of unhealthy products is pervasive: children in some countries see more than 100 online ads for sugary snacks and drinks each week.

A global UNICEF poll of young people found that three out of four had seen such ads in the previous week, and most said these increased their desire to consume the products.