Malnutrition refers to deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients. The term malnutrition refers to 3 broad groups of conditions:

• Undernutrition: malnutrition, which includes emaciation (low weight for height), stunting (low height for age) and underweight (low weight for age); There are 4 broad sub-forms of malnutrition: wasting, stunting, underweight and vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Malnutrition makes children, in particular, much more vulnerable to illness and death. Low height for age, known as dwarfism, is the result of chronic or recurrent malnutrition,usually associated with poor socio-economic conditions, poor maternal health and nutrition, frequent illnesses and/or inadequate feeding and care of babies and young children early in life. Short stature prevents children from reaching their physical and cognitive potential. An underweight child may be stunted, wasted or both.
• Micronutrient-related malnutrition, which includes micronutrient deficiencies (lack of important vitamins and minerals) or excess micronutrients; Inadequacies in the intake of vitamins and minerals, often referred to as micronutrients, can also be grouped together. Micronutrients enable the body to produce enzymes, hormones and other substances that are essential for proper growth and development. A Iodine, vitamin A and iron deficiencies represent a major threat to the health and development of populations around the world, especially children and pregnant women in low-income countries.
• Overweight, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers). Overweight and obesity occur when a person is too heavy for their height. Abnormal or excessive fat accumulation can damage health. The body mass index (BMI) is a weight-for-height index commonly used to classify overweight and obesity. It is defined as a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in metres (kg/m²). In adults, overweight is defined as a BMI of 25 or more, while obesity is a BMI of 30 or more. Overweight and obesity are the result of an imbalance between the energy consumed (too much) and the energy expended (too little). Globally, people consume more energy-dense foods and drinks (rich in sugars and fats) and do less physical activity. Diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) include cardiovascular diseases (such as heart attacks and strokes, often associated with hypertension), certain types of cancer and diabetes. Unhealthy diets and poor nutrition are among the main risk factors for these diseases worldwide

Source: World Health Organization

MALNUTRITION IN BRAZIL

The Food and Nutrition Surveillance System (SISVAN) was institutionalised by the Organic Health Law, which regulated the SUS and nutritional surveillance as a health system practice. It is defined as a health information system designed to continuously generate information on the nutritional status and food consumption of the population served by the Primary Health Care (PHC) network. Data from Sisvan public reports, according to the Height for Age (H/A) and Body Mass Index for Age (BMI/A) indices of children under 5 years of age, monitored by e-SUS AB Primary Care, Bolsa Família, in 2020, in Brazil. In relation to the nutritional status of children under 5, according to the anthropometric index A/A (Height for Age) around 86.29% of children are of adequate height for age, while 6.63% of children are of very low height for age and 7.08% are of low height for age, mainly in the northeast and north. Analysing the nutritional status data according to the BMI/A index, it was found that 58.75% of the children were eutrophic and around 3.17% and 3.08% of the children were markedly thin and thin. And the risk of overweight, overweight and obesity among the children are between 18.16%, 8.82% and 8.01%.

MALNUTRITION IN THE WORLD

According to the World Health Organisation in (UNICEF, WHO, 2021), globally 149.2 million children under the age of 5 were affected by growth deficits in 2020. Source: UNICEF, WHO, W. B. G. Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates. Who, v. 24, n. 2, p. 51-78, 2021. MOURAO, Ester et al. Temporal trend in the coverage of the Food and Nutrition Surveillance System among children under 5 years of age in the Northern region of Brazil, 2008-2017. Epidemiol. Serv. Saúde, Brasília, v. 29, n. 2, e2019377, May 2020. SISVAN (saude.gov.br)