DESPITE Bangladesh’s significant improvements in various nutrition indicators in the past, the direct interventions to improve nutritional status – such as ensuring maternal nutrition to reduce the low birth weight of babies, managing acute malnutrition, providing allowances to poor pregnant and nursing mothers – require more attention. During the pandemic, 73 per cent of women and 67 per cent of men did not eat nutritious foods, while the pandemic affected the dietary pattern of 28 per cent of households. Malnutrition in childhood and pregnancy has many adverse consequences for child survival and long-term well-being. It also has far-reaching consequences for human capital, economic productivity, and national development overall.
The Bangladesh National Nutrition Council (BNNC) has stated that although the government spent Tk 23,210 crore in nutrition relevant interventions in 2016-2017, which represented around one percent of GDP and around nine percent of the national budget, only two percent of the nutrition expenditure was on direct interventions. On the other hand, the vast majority of expenditure (around 98 per cent) was in addressing wide-ranging underlying causes of malnutrition, such as water and sanitation, the status of women, social protection, agriculture, education, environment and climate change among others.
Each upazila health complex every month usually receives 2,000 pieces of iron and folic acid supplements, 500 pieces of calcium carbonate and 1,000 pieces of vitamin B complexes, which are far less than the actual demand of an average of 250 pregnant women in each union. Most of the time, the stock exhausts within the first 10 days of the month, and when patients come later, they have to return empty-handed, which discourages many from coming again. The consequences of malnutrition should be a significant concern for policymakers in Bangladesh since about 5.5 million children under 5 years (36 per cent) are suffering from chronic malnutrition and 14 per cent are acutely malnourished. Experts say, increasing the expenditure of macronutrient distribution is crucial for resilient human capital development.
