Nutrious Situation In Myanmar
In Myanmar, 1 in 3 households are food insecure, 27% kids <5 years old are stunted and an estimated 30% of reproductive women (age 15-49) have anemia.
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Country Brief
As per Myanmar Population and Housing Census 2014, Myanmar was home to 51.5 million and there has been 54.4 million according to the Myanmar Historical Population Growth Rate and 52% of total population is female. The ratio of younger population is high. 29% (14.4 million) are children under 14 years while 18% (9 million) is population is between 15 to 24 years of age. The population growth rate is 0.63 % for 2019 and 0.67% for 2020. Child mortality rate is high in Myanmar as 45 out of 1000 children under 5 die per UNICEF updated data for 2019.
Malnutrition in Myanamar
Stunting and wasting
The latest nutrition status of children under five years old, as published in the Myanmar Micronutrient and Food Consumption Survey 2017-2018, is stunting 26.7%, wasting 6.7% and underweight 19.1%. For children up to 9 years old stunting is 21.1% and for girls between 10 and 14 years old this is 24.2%.
Micronutrient Deficiencies
With regards to micro-nutrient deficiencies, the Myanmar Micronutrient and Food Consumption Survey 2017-2018 reported 35.6% of children between 6 and 59 months with anemia, 51.1% primary school age children, 29.8% adolescent girls, 40% pregnant women, 35.4% lactating mothers and 30.3% women of reproductive age. Also, this is slightly lower than earlier studies, such as reported in the Global Nutrition Report, Myanmar Country Profile 2018. There has also been some progress towards achieving the low birth weight target with 12.3% of infants having a low weight at birth. Overall, still 33.2% of the households in the survey were found to be food insecure.
Myanmar Dietary patterns
Dietary patterns in Myanmar shows imbalanced dietary intake. The consumption is skewed towards rice and oils and fats. The consumption of food with high nutritive value such as dairy, meat and eggs are limited. Surprising, though Myanmar is a major exporter of pulses, the consumption of pulses is low among the population. The graph below shows a broad picture of dietary intake in Myanmar. (Source: Mapping the nutrition landscape in Myanmar)
