A professor of Pediatrics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Agozie Ubesie, has expressed concern that while the country has grappled with the cycle of undernutrition for a long time, the rising incidence of overnutrition is creating the double and triple burdens of childhood malnutrition in Nigeria.
He said this while delivering the 191st inaugural lecture of the university at the Enugu Campus titled 'The Burden of Childhood Malnutrition and the Bane of a Developing Economy: Breaking the Barriers to Ending a Cycle'.
He said the situation is a huge threat to child health and national socio-economic development and should be urgently addressed.
Ubesie revealed that the negative impact of malnutrition starts in utero and may persist the rest of adult life and even spill over to subsequent generations. He noted that malnutrition is a cycle process because women stunted in childhood tend to have stunted children, creating an intergenerational cycle of poverty and reduced human capital that was difficult to break.
According to him, over 820,000 children's lives could be saved yearly among children under five years if all children from 0-23 months were optimally breastfed.
He explained that optimal breastfeeding included initiating breastfeeding within an hour of birth, exclusively for up to six months, and breastfeeding a child for up to two years.
Ubesie, who hails from Achi in Enugu State, said that since Nigeria was struggling with childhood undernutrition and, like many developing economies in transition, facing rising incidence of overnutrition, adequate nutrition was a cost-effective intervention that holds the key to preventing a lot of communicable and non-communicable diseases which is connected to national development and growth.
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He maintained that as the health care paradigm shifts from treatment to preventive, cost-effective measures like appropriate breastfeeding practices, maternal and infant nutrition, and adequate complementary diet can significantly reduce childhood morbidities and mortalities.
The don commended the university administration for introducing the inaugural lecture series in 1976, saying it is a huge boost to learning and academic excellence.
He said it gave him the platform to bring to the public discourse the persistent burden of malnutrition in the nation despite years of economic boom.
The lecture was attended by members of the academia from within and outside the country, including the Chief Medical Director of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH, Prof. Obinna Onodugo, former provost of the College of Medicine, UNN, Prof. Ernest Onwasigwe and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Enugu-Campus, Prof. Daniel Nwachukwu who represented the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Charles Igwe.
