In developing countries, the prevalence of malnutrition is high. (Representative)
Paris, France:
Hunger, poor nutrition and obesity not only pose a health burden in developing countries, but also entail a hidden economic penalty that costs businesses up to $ 850 billion a year, according to a new report released Wednesday. .
Researchers said that malnutrition reduces people’s resilience to risks such as epidemics of infectious diseases and extreme weather events, as well as reduced productivity and incomes.
With the coronavirus pandemic expected to drive millions more into hunger and poverty, they called on governments and businesses to focus on nutrition as part of recovery efforts.
“While the costs of undernutrition and overweight / obesity to societies and governments are well explored, the costs and risks to businesses created by malnutrition in the workforce and the wider community have remained under the radar, “said principal investigator Laura Wellesley, principal investigator. fellow at Chatham House.
“We show that the costs and the risks are significant and that it is in the interest of companies to act.”
The report, which was compiled with the Vivid Economics group, defines malnutrition as both undernutrition and overeating – encompassing stunting and overweight anemia and obesity.
In developing countries where the prevalence of malnutrition is high, researchers have estimated the direct costs of lost productivity to be between $ 130 billion and $ 850 billion a year.
This equates to between 0.4% and 2.9% of the combined gross domestic product of these countries.
The report extrapolated the modeling results from 19 low and middle income countries in Asia, Africa, Central America and Europe.
According to the Global Nutrition Report 2020, about one in nine people in the world is hungry or undernourished, while one in three is overweight or obese. Almost a quarter of children under five are stunted.
Poverty warning
The problems that once existed at opposite ends of the wealth spectrum are increasingly converging in poor and middle-income countries, as populations, households and even individuals face a “double burden” of being overweight and undernourished.
“Obesity and undernutrition are both the result of poor nutrition, and the two should be tackled together if we are to alleviate the burden of malnutrition on businesses and societies,” said Wellesley.
She called for efforts to reduce the two issues, such as paying a living wage, subsidizing nutritious food for staff, providing breastfeeding support for mothers and education on the way to eat healthy.
The report stresses that action against malnutrition is in the interest of business.
Direct costs to businesses include reduced productivity associated with poor staff health and limits on workers’ physical and cognitive capacity, said Wellesley.
It also traps households in poverty, which means they have less money to spend as consumers, which hampers the development of a healthy workforce.
The report comes as Philip Alston, the former United Nations envoy for extreme poverty and human rights, criticized the international community for encouraging a misleading speech that global poverty is being eradicated when in fact he said it was increasing.
He warned that the pandemic would lead to hundreds of millions of people into unemployment and poverty, while increasing the number of people at risk of acute hunger by more than 250 million.
“Even before COVID-19, we have squandered a decade in the fight against poverty with a misplaced triumphalism blocking the very reforms that could have prevented the worst impacts of the pandemic,” he said.
Alston criticized the use of the World Bank’s international poverty line – currently $ 1.90 a day – as “imperfect,” saying it portrays a false positive.
(This story has not been edited by GalacticGaming staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
