Martha Buonadonna
brings together these days in Geneva, the General Assembly of the World Health Organization, where delegates of various states which are part and representatives of agencies, organizations and foundations that dealing with health Consider and adopt resolutions on some key issues for global health policies . Among the issues on which the Director-General Margaret Chan has attracted the attention of the delegates is that of growing childhood obesity , which increases at a faster rate in developing countries.
To address this issue, Chan has created a commission to study how curb to childhood obesity and will produce a report, to be submitted to the next year, which contains proposals for strategies that have the greatest chance of being effective in different contexts. The 2014 edition of the World Health Statistics, published a few days ago, the rest is clear: our children are getting fatter. In 2012, according to the report, about 44 million children with less than 5 years (6.7% of the total) were overweight or obese, up from 31 million (5%) surveyed in 1990.
The increase is global, but the geography of childhood obesity is changing. When it comes to overweight we all have in mind the U.S. and rich countries in general, but in African countries that are part of the WHO, that is, all except Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Somalia, the number of overweight children has increased 4000000-10000000 in 22 years. To stop the advance of obesity in early childhood is already one of the six goals for improving maternal and child nutrition at the global level and that of the WHO proposes to center by 2025. Promoting breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of a child’s life is one of the suggested strategies to prevent overweight.
Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2012 there was a net in the world improvement child survival . Mortality in children under 5 years of age has increased from 75 in 1000 to 48 in 1000. Notwithstanding it in 2012 are 6.6 million deaths of children , 44% of them in the first 28 days of life. The complications related to pre-term have been the leading cause of death (17.3%), followed by pneumonia (15.2%), trauma and asphyxia birth (11.4%), non-communicable diseases (10.8%) and diarrhea (9.5%).
Overall, there was an increase of ‘ life expectancy . The global averages say that a child born in 2012 can expect to live to 73 years old, a child under 68: it is six years longer than those born in 1990. But where one is born still makes all the difference. If it is true that the greatest increases in life expectancy over the last 22 years there have been in very poor countries such as Liberia (42 to 62 years old) , Ethiopia (45 to 64) Maldives (58 to 77), Cambodia (54 to 72), East Timor (50 to 66) and Rwanda (48 to 65), the difference between high and low income remains jarring.
A male born in 2012 in a wealthy country can hope to celebrate birthdays 76 , 16 more than a child born in a low-income country. An even greater difference exists between the girls: have a good chance of living up to 82 years in those born well-being, as they arrive on average only 63 years the girls born in poor countries. Italy ranks in the top ten of longevity: seventh for men (80.2 years) and sixth for women (85 years ). At the top we find for men Iceland (81.2 years) and for women, as always, Japan (87 years).
No comments:
Post a Comment