Child hunger is when children go without food consistently and become undernourished or malnourished.

Many children across the globe are in urgent need of enough calories to survive in catastrophic hunger situations, extreme poverty, and vulnerability. In other circumstances, children consume too many calories from low-quality foods. These foods do not provide the necessary nutrients for their bodies and brains.

Not all children go through these extreme situations. However, insufficient and unhealthy food or a lack of vital nutrients can negatively impact a child's future development.

Malnutrition happens when children experience deficiencies or excesses in nutrient intake. These excesses and deficiencies create an imbalance or impaired ability to utilise the essential nutrients children need to thrive. The worst cases of malnutrition can end with serious illness or even death.

Malnutrition includes 3 broad groups of conditions:

• Undernutrition, which for children specifically includes wasting (low weight-for-height), stunting (low height-for-age) and underweight (low weight-for-age).
• Micronutrient-related malnutrition, which includes micronutrient deficiencies (a lack of important vitamins and minerals) or micronutrient excess.
• Overweight (high weight-for-height), obesity (a severe form of overweight) and diet-related non-communicable diseases (e.g. diabetes).

Every crisis is a hunger crisis. Adverse effects of climate change, such as droughts, floods, extreme storms, and unpredictable weather, have destroyed crops and incomes. COVID-19 caused lockdowns and disruptions, which led to higher prices for food and other essentials, affecting family incomes worldwide. On top of this, the impact of the war in Ukraine – the wheat basket of the world – is global. Choking off its grain exports has reduced emergency food aid to refugees, limited available food for countries dependent on grain imports, and driven up food prices everywhere.

The compounding impact of multiple crises is creating a perfect storm for the world's most vulnerable girls and boys. Families often face the difficult choice of purchasing food or meeting other essential needs for their children. These needs may include medicine, school supplies, or even a place to live.

Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child's life - between conception and age 2 - causes poor brain and physical development. Those who survive face lasting development and health consequences, including a higher risk of stunting, a lower IQ, and an increased risk of obesity and diabetes.

As children grow, nutritious food protects them from common illnesses and provides them with the fuel to learn. Childhood is a window of opportunity to give the next generation every opportunity to be resilient and thrive.

If we don’t act now, a generation of vulnerable children will die or not reach their potential. Too hungry to focus in school, so poor they are forced into work, or married off in the hope that one less belly at home will mean everyone else can survive just a little longer. Chronic malnutrition will keep them from reaching their full potential as they grow, limiting their development.

Hunger and malnutrition affect the most vulnerable groups, like those living in conflict zones; experiencing climate shocks, such as droughts or flooding; or who have been forcibly displaced. Children are the most at risk of experiencing the direct and indirect impacts of hunger; but women and girls are the ones who suffer the most.

Children in fragile or humanitarian situations have limited access to enough nutritious food. This is particularly true for those in their first 1,000 days, from conception to 2 years old. These children are especially vulnerable to lifelong effects of severe malnutrition or even death.

No, they are not the same thing. Starvation is extreme suffering or death, caused by a prolonged lack of food. Malnutrition happens when children experience deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in nutrient intake or when their bodies’ ability to utilise the nutrients is impaired. The most common causes of malnutrition are inadequate diet or disease (e.g. severe or repeated bouts of infection).

The most severe form of undernutrition is known as severe wasting, it is the most visible form of malnutrition, typified by a frail, skeletal child with very low weight for their height and severe muscle wasting. It requires urgent treatment to survive. Children suffering from this may also have nutritional oedema – characterised by swollen feet, face, and limbs. If left untreated, severe acute malnutrition can cause lasting or irreversible damage, including organ damage and death.