By John Kasozi
and Rachael Ninsiima

ABOUT 19% of Ugandans are malnourished, the gender, labour and social affairs minister, Gabriel Opio, has said.

“Most affected are children below five years. Stunted growth and underweight among this group have persisted,” he said. Opio was speaking at the opening of the two-day workshop on nutrition at the Commonwealth Resort Hotel in Munyonyo.

“Child malnutrition continues to be an important development challenge for our nation. Although the prevalence of stunted children under five years has declined over the past 15 years from 45% to 39%, it is too small to match population growth,” observed Opio. He added that they were as many stunted children today as there were 15 years ago.

“Many young children continue not to receive sufficient calories, vitamins, minerals, or appropriate nutritional care, such as breastfeeding and proper weaning, to achieve normal physical and mental development.”

Their mothers are often anaemic or malnourished, Opio added. In the womb, he said, mothers transmit their poor nutritional status to their children.
Because of this, 11% of the children are already stunted at birth, he explained.

According to the deputy principal of the school of public health at Makerere University, Prof. John Kakitahi, future food sufficiency was uncertain in Uganda given the high rate of population growth.

He stressed that malnutrition is an underlying contributor to infant and child mortality and is associated with about 50% of deaths of children under five years annually.

The underlying causes of malnutrition in Uganda are inadequate water and sanitation safety, access to health infrastructure and health care, and food security, according to this year’s analysis of the nutrition situation in Uganda.

The analysis said malnutrition remains largely a hidden problem since many children are moderately malnourished and identifying the problem without regular assessments is difficult.
The levels of malnutrition vary with region, it added.

The problem is most common in the north and south-west.

In the western region where land is fertile and food production high, studies have shown that over 40% of children below 5-years are stunted.

Despite the modest increase in food production over the years, the per capita food production is declining. This is due to the high population growth rate, the study said.

Dr. Elizabeth Madraa, the head of nutrition in the health ministry, said consequences of malnutrition had an effect on agricultural productivity, diseases and survival, and human capacity development.