Malnutrition affects over 200K children in Lebanon under the age of five

According to Lebanon’s Nutrition Sector group, over 94 percent of children aged six to 23 months were not fed adequate diets, potentially leading to adverse life-long consequences. According to the report Nutrition in Times of Crisis, there are 200,000 malnourished children in Lebanon under five years old.

Lebanon Nutrition Sector led by UNICEF and Action Against Hunger has called for stakeholders to take action against malnutrition. It stressed that nutrition needs have to be met throughout a person’s lifetime. Many children in Lebanon lack nutrition due to a compound crisis. This situation has generational and irreversible consequences.

In Lebanon, 7 percent of children under age 5 are stunted, and anaemia is common, with pregnant women and young children at risk of complications of pregnancy. Seventy percent of infants are not exclusively breastfed during the first six months of their lives.

Almost 94 percent of children receive inadequate nutrition to grow and develop, lack the minimum variety and frequency of meals, and do not have adequate diversity from the five food groups. To address malnutrition in Lebanon, an integrated approach is needed, including food, health, sanitation, water, education, and social protection.