Socio-economic Inequities Drive Hunger in North West

Socio-economic Inequities Drive Hunger in North West

Hunger Plagues North West Due to Socio-economic Disparities

Physical

Indicators

Alarming Rates of Malnutrition, Stunting, and Obesity

Provincial Trends

Provincial Trends

The presented Malnutrition Index for the North West province of South Africa,  paints an alarming picture that elucidates the increasing climate emergencies resulting from hunger, food poverty and insecurity, malnutrition in all its forms. In addition, it  highlights the disproportionate nutrition outcomes by key socio-demographic characteristics or nutrition inequalities, such as geographic location; age, gender,  education and wealth https://operationhunger.org.za/north-west/. Unequal nutrition outcomes are rooted in deeper inequities that arise from unjust systems and processes that structure our everyday living conditions. These systems and processes shape opportunities and barriers to attaining healthy diets, healthy environments and healthy lives. Inequity affects people throughout the social hierarchy and is grounded in relatively disempowered groups or individuals. Everyday circumstances, environment, social position, human capital, and social context all jointly determine a person’s likelihood of becoming malnourished. It is no coincidence therefore that many forms of malnutrition affect the most socially and politically powerless groups: women, children and those less educated or living in poverty. 

Improving nutrition sustainably enhances the socio-demographic equity of societies and communities as it impacts and directly contributes to productivity, economic development, and poverty reduction by improving physical work capacity, cognitive development, school performance, and health by reducing disease and mortality. Poor nutrition perpetuates the cycle of poverty and malnutrition through three main routes— direct losses in productivity from poor physical status and losses caused by disease linked with malnutrition; indirect losses from poor cognitive development and losses in schooling; and losses caused by increased health care costs.

We invite you to join Operation Hunger in collaboration as we scale up coverage for our sustainable nutrition intervention programs within the North West province. Share our universal premise: prevent child malnutrition in all its forms  across all life cycles.