High food prices: Silent tsunami of ill health in the making

from Vanguard

Written by Sola Ogundipe & Chioma Obinna

The prevailing high food prices are having radically different effects across the length and breadth of the country. Most Nigerians are hard hit by the rising or risen food prices. At the household level, surging and volatile food prices are hitting families least able to afford it, where they feel it most - their pockets or wallets. Clearly, the abjectly poor and chronically food insecure are in dire straits.

The outlook is even more bleak for poor households that are net buyers of food — which represent the larger majority. With no buffer to shield them from these outrageous price rises, they are groaning. Their survival is at risk. Higher prices of food is leading especially the poor to limit their food consumption quality and quantity and to shift to less-balanced diets, with overall harmful effects on health. Saturday Vanguard’s health crew, Sola Ogundipe & Chioma Obinna examine the short- term and long-term effects of the prevailing food crisis. They gather that at the current rate, malnutrition, one of the most imminent effects, would not be overcome in Nigeria for the next two centuries. This report highlights concerns by experts that except urgent steps are taken, the country may be headed down a steep incline on the nutrition and development scale from which recovery would be difficult.

What’s going on with food?
Quest-ce qui ne va pas avec les aliments? Nigerians are aghast. The prices of foodstuff have suddenly gone topsy-turvey. Household food security of the average family is seriously threatened. Do you know what you are eating? How nutritious is your food? Are you aware the world is in the midst of a food crisis that is challenging understanding of nutrition and food itself? Is food available, but inaccessible? Why are there increasing incidences of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure, particularly in poor populations who can least afford good food? By now, everyone probably knows rice has almost gone out of reach no thanks to skyrocketting prices. Most people know the prices of gari and maize have jumped up tremendously and can attest that the cost of bread (yes), beans, yams, maize, soyabeans and other staples have shot through the roof, or that pepper, tomatoes, meat, fish, poultry, vegetables and other condiments are as costly as gold dust.

Indeed, wholesale food prices, an indicator of where commodity prices are headed, have risen sharply lately and at the fastest rate in recent times. Poverty and the inequalities of society have been fingered as the biggest culprits. On its own, poverty remains the No.1 cause of food insecurity and sustainable progress in poverty eradication which is critical to improving access to food. But analysts say the worst may be yet to come. They told Saturday Vanguard that they expect Nigerian consumers may have to contend with paying more for food for a while longer.

As a consequence, the dietary quality in most Nigerian homes is becoming dangerously weak and inadequate. While outright starvation may not yet be on the agenda, the danger of “passive” hunger is certainly a very real threat. To cut a long story short, the nutrition situation of the average Nigerian is noticeably deteriorating. The underlying problems of chronic malnutrition and undernutrition due to increasing difficulties of access to nutritious food are becoming more relevant by the day.

Improvements in malnutrition and advances in food security attained over the years are very likely to be slowed if not completely lost, no thanks to the current food crisis. The scenario is a cause for concern. The end of hunger and malnutrition that had been gradually coming into sight is at the point of receding again. Saturday Vanguard gathered that at the current rate, malnutrition would not be overcome in Nigeria for the next two centuries. Even goals from the World Summit for Children of 1990, the International Conference on Nutrition of 1992, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2020, are becoming even less likely to be met.

Today malnutrition contributes to 54 per cent of childhood deaths. The proportion of children underweight provides the commonest indicator of malnutrition. It is known that being underweight - even mildly - increases risk of death and inhibits cognitive development in children, leading to less fit and productive adults; moreover it perpetuates the problem from one generation to the next, through malnourished women having low birth weight babies.

In the face of the current food crisis, the average Nigerian is now worse off nutritionally than 10 years ago. The worry now is that the nation’s poorest people are fast losing out in the fight against hunger, undernutrition and malnutrition. As more and more persons are unable to meet their basic nutritional needs, the basic right of access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right to be free from hunger, no longer holds true. This is so because efforts to reduce poverty and facilitate access to food are having little or no impact on the latest impasse.
Nutritionists warn that if nothing changes, deaths and disability from non-communicable diseases are likely to surpass those from communicable diseases in the near future with major implications for health care resource demands. The concern is that except urgent steps are taken to nip the trend in the bud, the country may be headed down a steep incline on the nutrition and development scale from which recovery would be difficult.

“Malnutrition robs a country of its best minds and bodies and the lives of children,” remarked a world acclaimed nutritionist and growth therapist. “The gravity of malnutrition cannot be overemphasized. Malnutrition reduces intelligence, educability, disease resistance, productivity and activity. Malnutrition is passed along to the next generation if a pregnant woman is malnourished. That the reduction or prevention of malnutrition offers widespread, tangible benefits for individuals and countries cannot be overemphasised.”

But it is the present high cost of food that is enhancing the problems of hunger and malnutrition, and negating sustainable strategies to address them. “We know that agricultural development that is reputed to have greatest impact on reducing malnutrition if coupled with efforts to improve family income, the health environment, and nutrition behaviours, is not being properly addressed, argues an agric scientist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan.

“Agricultural production must be linked to household food security, improved education, and appropriate care practices.
To assure a sustainable and sufficient world food supply, it has been suggested that it is necessary to keep under review investments in agricultural development affecting supply. It is also imperative to increase the production and consumption of legumes, fruits, and vegetables to address micronutrient malnutrition.

“Sadly, there is little or nothing by way of investments matched with programmes of action on nutrition to achieve the goals set by the 1992 International Conference on Nutrition.

Since the World Food Conference and the International Conference on Nutrition, it is now clear that neither financial resources nor technology are binding constraints. “What is required is political commitment and a sound strategy. We should not be trapped in irreversible downward trend. Countries have shown how to improve the nutritional status of their people, especially the most vulnerable. If clear action is taken seriously and soon, improvements in nutrition will become evident - with positive results for today’s society and for future generations. “

As Nigerians continue to learn more about how much “people are what they eat”, or about how complicated this is, as they learn more about how their grandparents may have been right in telling them to eat a varied diet - the question arises of how this helps to make the foodstuff more affordable. Improving people’s health, particularly children, brings a whole variety of different kinds of effect. The impact of balanced diet on a child’s functional development includes improved immune function and resistance to disease -reduced infant and child mortality rates; better school performance; increased work capacity as adults and reduced maternal/foetal risk in pregnancy.