Economic Crisis: Food insecure households up 24% Q3, 2023 compared to 17% March 2023

• 74% of households were unable to afford food or basic essentials in 2022 
• Severe Child Malnutrition: Stunting and underweight rates  surged, with 24.6% of children in Nuwara Eliya identified as moderately  or severely underweight

The economic crisis has taken its toll on food security of the  country, with the number of food insecure households increasing to 24  per cent in the third quarter of 2023 compared to 17 per cent in March  2023, a statement from the parliamentary media unit said yesterday.   

The statement said 98 per cent of the entire population  was affected by the increase in food prices in 2022 due to the  economic crisis.  

The report of the Select Committee of Parliament to look  into whether the child malnutrition issue in Sri Lanka is aggravating  presented to Parliament.   

The report of the Select Committee of Parliament to look  into whether the child malnutrition issue in Sri Lanka is aggravating  and to identify short-term, medium-term, and long-term measures to be  taken in that regard, as well as to oversee the speedy implementation of  the identified measures was presented to Parliament by MP Rohini Kumari  Wijerathna on behalf of the Select Committee Chair Vadivel Suresh  recently.   
The Report presents that child undernutrition can be  presented in four forms such as stunting (low length/height for age),  wasting (low weight for length/ height or low BMI for age), underweight  (low weight for age) and, micronutrient deficiencies/insufficiencies -  a lack/inadequacy of important vitamins and minerals.   
The Report further states that babies born with a birth  weight of 2500 grams or less are considered to be low birth weight and  according to the National Nutrition and Micronutrient Survey conducted  in 2022, the prevalence of low birth weight in a nationally  representative sample was 15.9%. The June 2023 Nutrition Month report  identified an increase in underweight and stunting among infants and  children up to two years of age compared to 2022. The most alarmingly  high underweight rate of 24.6% was recorded in Nuwara Eliya District,  where one in every four children was identified as moderately or  severely underweight, the report said.   
In June 2023, the proportion of children affected by  poverty in Sri Lanka is 10%, according to this report. 1.2% of all  children under the age of 5 are affected by severe acute malnutrition  and numerically nearly 16,000 children suffer from such acute  malnutrition.   
The Nutrition Month 2023 report revealed a 10.3% increase  in stunting among children under the age of five, an increase of 9.2%  from the previous year. The report has revealed that the causes of  chronic malnutrition, which are short or short in height compared to  children of the same age, occur over time. Meanwhile, according to the  survey conducted in 2022, a nationally representative sample of children  aged 5-18 years found that shortness, overweight and obesity increase  with age. The report has shown that a lack of food security at the  household level has also contributed to malnutrition. Due to the  economic crisis in the year 2022, 98% of the entire population has been  affected by the increase in food prices, and as a result, 74% of the  households could not afford to buy food or daily essentials in the last  six months of that year, according to the report. The number of food  insecure households increased to 24% in the third quarter of 2023  compared to 17% in March 2023. A third of all families have reduced the  frequency of cooking or limited their consumption and a quarter live on  food from neighbours.   
The report provides conclusions and recommendations for  improving child nutrition. It emphasised the importance of immediate  attention to children before they become chronically malnourished. The  report also emphasised the need for adequately skilled field health  staff to provide quality Maternal and Child Nutrition (MCN) services for  Maternal and Child Health (MCH) programmes. The report also emphasised  that vitamin A supplementation should be considered again before this  becomes a problem again, as vitamin A supplementation has been  discontinued for school children. The need for urgent action to improve  the food security status of families with children under the age of five  has also been highlighted.   
The report also recommends using existing health management  information systems to identify focal areas of malnutrition in children  and to map risk to address malnutrition in order to identify the most  vulnerable families and causal factors.   
A number of short, medium and long-term recommendations  have been presented in this report, including uninterrupted supply of  nutritional supplements to pregnant mothers and malnourished children,  control of prices of those ingredients to ensure affordable availability  of ingredients for a healthy and low-cost diet, the implementation and  monitoring of pre-school feeding programme, school feeding programme and  school canteen guidelines to provide quality food.