How does undernutrition affect the body?

How does undernutrition affect the body?

If undernutrition is severe, fluid may accumulate in the arms, legs, and abdomen. The number of some types of white blood cells decreases, resembling what happens in people who have AIDS. As a result, the immune system is weakened, increasing the risk of infections.

What are the effects of undernutrition and malnutrition on a child?

Malnourished children may be short for their age, thin or bloated, listless and have weakened immune systems. Nutritional disorders can affect any system in the body and the senses of sight, taste and smell. They may also produce anxiety, changes in mood and other psychiatric symptoms.

What are the effects of malnutrition on child development?

Health and physical consequences of prolonged states of malnourishment among children are: delay in their physical growth and motor development; lower intellectual quotient (IQ), greater behavioural problems and deficient social skills; susceptibility to contracting diseases [1, 2].

Why is undernutrition a concern during childhood and adolescence?

Undernutrition in childhood and adolescence also results in constant physiologic and psychologic stress, increasing the production of stress hormones that weaken the body and decreasing the production of thyroid hormones and insulin-like growth factor that regulate growth.

What types of disease are usually the result from undernutrition?

It leads to clinical syndromes such as Kwashiorkor, Marasmus, and Anemia.

• Kwashiorkor. Kwashiorkor is a protein deficiency disease, caused due to poor intake of protein or quality protein over a prolonged period of time.
• Marasmus.
• Anaemia.

How does malnutrition affect infants physical and cognitive growth?

Inadequate brain growth explains why children who were malnourished as fetuses and infants suffer often lasting behavioral and cognitive deficits, including slower language and fine motor development, lower IQ, and poorer school performance.

What are the effects of undernutrition to Philippines?

Half the population suffers from malnutrition-related conditions – In the Philippines, about 50 percent of the population suffers from anemia caused by iron deficiency. Large percentages of people suffer from other malnutrition-related ailments. Such ailments lead to fatigue and decreased immune function.

How many children are affected by undernutrition?

2. How many children suffer from malnutrition? Severe malnutrition affects 45 million children across the globe each year. That’s nearly one out of every three children under the age of five (ie, the entire population of California + Chicago + Houston).

What is the cause of undernutrition?

Malnutrition (undernutrition) is caused by a lack of nutrients, either as a result of a poor diet or problems absorbing nutrients from food. Certain things can increase your risk of becoming malnourished.

What happens to digestion and absorption in cases of severe undernutrition?

Conclusions: Severe undernutrition is associated with significant impairment of digestive function, with improvement occurring following nutritional support. These changes may affect initial tolerance to enteral feeding, particularly in those patients with co-existent gut disease.

How does nutrition affect growth and development during infancy?

During childhood, under-nutrition causes children to have less energy and less interest for learning, which negatively influences cognitive development and academic performance. Under-nutrition will also affect physical growth and maturation, thus affecting growth rate, body weight and ultimately, height.

How does malnutrition affect the children intellectually?

The key findings from this study are that malnutrition at age 3 years is associated with poorer verbal and full-scale cognitive ability at age 3 years and poorer VIQ, spatial IQ, full-scale IQ, reading ability, and school and neuropsychologic performance at age 11 years.