Section 2.3

Chapter 2 Sustainable Development Goal 2.2: Malnutrition

2.3 Overweight among children under five

Globally, 5.7 percent (38.9 million) of children under five years of age were overweight in 2018. Of these, 10.6 million children are in Africa, and the continental prevalence, at 5.3 percent, is slightly below the global one. At the subregional level, the prevalence is below the continental average in Central Africa (4.8 percent), Eastern Africa (4 percent) and Western Africa (2.7 percent), but it is substantially higher than the average in Northern Africa (13 percent) and Southern Africa (12.1 percent) (Table 8). In Northern Africa, the trend is clearly upwards while in Southern Africa there has been no change in the last five years (Figure 13). The prevalence in Southern Africa is much higher than the global average, driven by the high prevalence in South Africa (12.9 percent) (Figure 14). There is nonetheless variability in the subregion as the prevalence in Namibia and Lesotho is much lower, at 5 percent and 7.2 percent respectively. The highest prevalence rates of child overweight are in Libya (25.4 percent), Egypt (17.8 percent) and Tunisia (16.5 percent).

TABLE 8.

Prevalence of overweight among children under five (percent)

	2000	2005	2010	2015	2020
World	5.4	5.7	5.6	5.6	5.7
Africa	6.2	6.3	5.1	5.0	5.3
Central Africa	5.9	6.2	4.7	4.3	4.8
Eastern Africa	5.3	5.5	4.3	3.8	4.0
Northern Africa	10.9	11.3	11.7	12.5	13.0
Southern Africa	10.6	11.4	11.9	12.1	12.1
Western Africa	4.4	4.2	2.5	2.2	2.7

Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank.

FIGURE 13.

Prevalence of overweight among children under five in Africa by subregion

Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank.
https://doi.org/10.4060/cb7496en-fig13

FIGURE 14.

Prevalence of overweight among children under five in Africa by country

Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank.
https://doi.org/10.4060/cb7496en-fig14

Among the subregions, only Western Africa is on track towards meeting the WHA overweight target for 2030. All the other subregions are not only off track but have also not made any progress towards meeting the target.¹¹ ¹¹ FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP & WHO. 2021. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb4474en

Addressing childhood overweight requires healthy food environments and appropriate food and nutrition education, particularly school-based nutrition education, to promote practices and behaviours that prevent overweight, when combined with efforts to improve the diversity and nutritional quality of foods available. Breast milk, apart from providing essential nutrients for infant growth and development, also reduces the risk of overweight and obesity later in childhood or adolescence. Regulation of food and beverage marketing to children is important. Fiscal policies, such as taxes and subsidies, when carefully designed, have also been shown to be effective at changing consumer behaviour.¹² ¹² For more detail see FAO, ECA & AUC. 2020. Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2019. Containing the damage of economic slowdowns and downturns to food security in Africa. Rome. www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/ca7343en/