EDUCATION AND THE NUTRITION TRANSITION

IN SOUTH Africa, food insecurity is endemic, with 33% of the population falling below the food poverty line.

Around 25% of children are stunted due to chronic malnutrition. With less than 50% of children who start school in Grade 1 completing Grade 12, the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) is a key government effort to redress the impact of poverty and food insecurity on education.

Non-profits such as the Lunchbox Fund reach children not yet reached by government programmes in the early childhood sector and augment NSNP lunches with a fortified breakfast meal in severely food-insecure schools.

School feeding programmes have a range of positive impacts, including improved cognitive functioning and performance, higher enrolments and attendance, improvement in micronutrient deficiencies and improved community involvement in schools.

School feeding programmes targeting the food insecure and vulnerable can alleviate child hunger and help children participate and learn.

Caregivers are often reluctant to send a child to school if they have no lunch to take. This is why schools in South Africa serving food-insecure communities typically see a drop off in attendance towards month end.

The knowledge that a child will be receiving a meal is a strong incentive for caregivers to enrol and send their children to school.

Food insecurity and its relationship with education has, however, been radically altered in recent years through shifts in market economies, urbanisation and globalisation.

South Africa – like other developing countries worldwide – is faced with a “nutrition transition”. Access to relatively cheap, but heavily processed food, low in nutritional value but high in energy, is having an enormous negative impact on health and nutrition among the poor.

Increasingly overweight malnutrition is seen occurring alongside stunting. Overweight and obesity can feature severe micronutrient deficiencies and have numerous chronic health impacts. The rapid expansion of the supermarket sector has yielded a steady availability of processed, packaged foods even in deep rural areas.

High-energy foods are frequently chosen by the poor in preference to high-nutrient content foods – not least because they may yield more affordable energy per rand. Dietary preferences are simultaneously shifting to “globalised” food, found tasty because it is high in salt, sugar and fat.

Poverty and inadequate food access are therefore no longer associated with only with hunger, stunting and wasting. Several types of malnutrition co-exist: stunting, wasting and vitamin and mineral deficiencies, overweight or obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases.

Globally one of these forms of malnutrition affects nearly one in three people. In South Africa, obesity is rising rapidly. In just six years, the number of obese young South Africans has doubled.

Misselhorn is the director of research and strategy at the Lunchbox Fund, which helps food-insecure children in South Africa get the education they need to build a life free of poverty

Dietary preferences are shifting to ‘globalised’ food, found tasty because it is high in salt, sugar and fat