Children’s Health Landscape
Just observationally looking at children playing in a park or school in the US, stark changes are revealed than one might not have noted just a few decades ago.
Presently, one might expect to see 1 in 5 to 1 in 3 of the kids with obesity; excessive behavioral disorders such as overt aggression or social isolation with ASD affecting 1 in 23 boys; 1 in 6 to 1 in 8 children seen having their asthma inhalers in their back pockets and cell phones in many of their hands, spending more time on their phones than in other physical activities. (As an aside, the epidemic of cell phone usage at schools has created flocks of kids looking downward consistently, so much so that a newly diagnosed condition has emerged, “text neck”.)11
Additionally, mental health challenges are dominating adolescence, for example, with
1 in 6 US youth aged 6-17 years old experiencing a mental health disorder each year.12
What Do the Statistics Say about African Children’s Health?
A look at obesity: The African Region is experiencing similar obesity rates as inmany parts of the world.13
A common misconception is that obesity and other chronic diseases are affecting the wealthy and the poorer populations are immune. This has been shown to be a fallacy and the upward trend in obesity is associated with a change in diet to sugary/highly processed foods, decreased consumption of legumes and vegetables, the navigation away from traditional diets, as well as an increase in sedentary life styles.
Obesity in children is not a benign disorder and is associated with the development of metabolic syndrome, hypertension, mental health issues such as low self-esteem, bullying and risks of future chronic diseases in adulthood.14
While Africa comprises 54 countries with a vast array of different languages and cultures, there is a continental trend of countries undergoing a nutritional transition, with nutrition-related diseases such as nutrient deficiencies (zinc, iron, vitamin A), and growth retardation coexisting with obesity in children causing a significant health burden.15
As noted globally, the pattern of changing diets to more “western diets” and decreased physical activity are contributing to this dilemma.16
Upon a review of the literature on African children and diet, the role of infectious diseases is noted and reported, as well as the aforementioned factors. However, there is little mention of the role of contamination by pesticides as another root cause of nutritional disease.
While there are contradictory studies and an element of industry bias in research, most of the data supports that organically grown crops contain more iron, magnesium, phosphorus and Vitamin C as well as fewer nitrates than conventional crops.17
In addition, there are also lower levels of some heavy metals in organic crops as compared to those that are grown conventionally.18 In other studies, contamination of glyphosate-based herbicides with heavy metals have been reported.19
Indeed, providing the most nutrient-dense food free of contaminants and toxicants such as lead, aluminum and mercury should be a major consideration in childhood nutrient analyses, especially in lieu of the fact that small children do not eat large quantities.
Therefore, one of the goals is to maximize nutrient density in smaller amounts of food.