Addressing the Double Burden of Malnutrition in ASEAN
Malnutrition, which encompasses both undernutrition and overnutrition, presents a significanthuman capital as well as economic development challenge across most ASEAN Member States.A healthy, well-nourished, well-educated and skillful population...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Policy Note |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Bangkok
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/804731578325978325/Addressing-the-Double-Burden-of-Malnutrition-in-ASEAN http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33142 |
| Summary: | Malnutrition, which encompasses both
undernutrition and overnutrition, presents a
significanthuman capital as well as economic development
challenge across most ASEAN Member States.A healthy,
well-nourished, well-educated and skillful population
provides the foundation for aproductive life and enables
future workers to compete in the dynamic labor markets of
digitaleconomies. However, most of ASEAN's lower-income
countries face an unfinished agenda withregard to
undernutrition. Undernutrition elevates the risk of infant
and child morbidity andmortality, increases expenditure on
health care and social safety nets, lowers the efficiency
ofinvestments in education, and decreases lifelong
income-earning potential and labor forceproductivity, with
the potential to be transmitted across generations.
Estimates for some ASEANmember states show undernutrition
resulting in annual losses of between 2.4 percent - 4.4
percent of GDP Overnutrition compounds the challenges.
Overnutrition is posing an increasing challenge to ASEAN,
with some countries having high prevalence of obesity and
overweight. In the last 35 years obesity prevalence across
ASEAN increased over 7-fold, most rapidly in Cambodia,
Indonesia, and Lao PDR, where obesity rates have risen more
than 10-fold. Childhood overweight and obesity is likewise a
growing problem, especially in Brunei, Malaysia, and
Thailand where childhood overweight prevalence exceeds 25
percent. Overweight and obesity among ASEAN member states
have high direct costs for some countries, for example in
Brunei it is 16. Direct health care costs related to
treatment of obesity and associated chronic diseases due to
obesity as well as indirect costs, particularly from the
loss of labor productivity, are expected to increase in many
ASEAN countries. |
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