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18 December 2018 Over 200 million children worldwide suffer from some form of malnutrition which, in 2017, was the cause of about 3 million child deaths. In Italy, however, one in three children is overweight. These are some data from the new UNICEF report 'Give it weight: UNICEF's commitment to fight malnutrition'. According to the latest data, about 151 million children suffer from chronic malnutrition, 50.5 are affected by acute malnutrition. Africa and Asia bear the greatest burden of the various forms of malnutrition: in 2017, 55% of children suffering from chronic malnutrition lived in Asia, 39% in Africa; 69% of those with acute malnutrition were in Asia, 27% in Africa.


 Equally worrying are the data on children's obesity, given that for over 15 years there has been no progress in curbing the growth of the overweight rate: in 2017, 38.3 million children under 5 were overweight, 8 million more than the 30.1 million in 2000. In 2017, 5.6% of the world's child population under 5 years were overweight. In Europe, 1 in 3 children are overweight. In Italy the percentage of obese children and adolescents increased by almost 3 times in 2016 compared to 1975. In Italy, childhood obesity is not only due to poor nutrition (excess of sugar and fat consumption even in childhood) , but also to an often too sedentary lifestyle. According to the latest Istat data, the share of sedentary children is very high in the 3-5 year old age group (48.8%) decreases in the following age groups, but begins to rise and remain high starting from the age group 18-19 years (20.8%).

 Eating disorders are pathologies of extreme potential seriousness also due to the high rate of medical and psychiatric complications / comorbidities. At the international level, 7.1% of males and 13.4% of females exhibit disturbed eating behavior in subjects aged between 9 and 14 years. Eating disorders are more common in industrialized and high-income countries. "When it comes to malnutrition, our imagination takes us directly to situations related to the poorest countries," said Francesco Samengo, president of Unicef ​​Italy.