The Nutrition Society of Nigeria on Monday stated that about 11 million Nigerian children under the age of five had become stunted by malnutrition.
President of NSN and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Prof. Ngozi Nnam, said this at a press briefing in Abuja.
She stressed that the statistics implied that physical and cognitive development of affected children were being impaired.
According to Nnam, children affected by malnutrition will be unable to reach their full potentials, saying Nigeria is reported to have the second highest level of malnutrition in children after India.
"Globally, malnutrition causes 2.3 million child deaths every year and has tangible impacts on the economic and social development of countries affected. In Nigeria, 11 million children under five years old are stunted by malnutrition; it can undermine future earning potential by as much as 20 percent and inhibit economic growth by as much as three percent of GDP," she said.
Nnam added that G-8 countries would, next week, hold a summit on nutrition for growth to help foster ways for saving two million child deaths annually from malnutrition.
Also speaking, the Project/Programme Coordinator, Federation of Muslim Association of Nigeria, Hajia Hauwa Ibrahim, said every child should be breastfed for two years with six months exclusively on human breast milk.
While frowning on the practice of using animal milk such as cow to feed children, she said, "Cow milk is meant for cow while human breast milk is for human children. Why must we go for the milk of a cow and give to human beings?
"The intelligent quotient of children breastfed with milk of the animal will be lower compared to those breastfed exclusively with the human breast milk. Behaviour of children fed with animal milk will also be animal-like against the good behaviour which children fed with human breast milk portray."
The Punch