Credits: asiaplus.news
When we think about malnutrition in children, we all immediately think of underweight children as the most common form of malnutrition, yet to my great surprise I discovered from the report Feeding Profit: How Food Environments are Failing Children that obesity is today the most common form of malnutrition in the world. For the first time, the number of obese children has surpassed underweight children, and this is extremely significant.
For years we have talked about hunger, about scarcity, but the numbers today are these: the percentage of boys and girls aged 5 to 19 has decreased since 2000, going from almost 13% to 9.2%, while obesity rates have increased from 3% to 9.4%. It is a surpassing that says a lot; overall in the world about 188 million children and adolescents between 5 and 19 years old are obese, almost one in ten.
And it is not just a matter of rich countries, it also concerns middle- and low-income countries. The number of young people who are overweight has doubled in the last twenty years, and growth is strong everywhere. And the culprits are precisely them, ultra-processed foods: they are everywhere, cost less, are more accessible, and do not require time to be prepared.
And the push towards these foods is even more evident when I enter a supermarket today, especially in front of shelves full of snacks and sugary drinks: all full of colors, offers, cute and designed packaging, low prices… all things that push a child to want them, and parents now always give in, so we end up with snacks instead of meals, drinks instead of water, food that fills but does not nourish. And almost always when this is the easiest and cheapest option.
This is not just a food problem, but a consumption problem. And in the end, it is true that the problem of underweight children is improving, but we have not solved hunger this way, we have simply transformed it into another form of excess.
References: https://www.datocms-assets.com/30196/1757490380-cnr-2025-feeding-profit-final-report-english-final.pdf
