According to a Canadian government data on nutrition in developing countries, over 2.3 billion people suffer from malnutrition globally in one form or another. The data noted that 928 million people do not consume enough food, 2 billion people do not consume enough vitamins and minerals, 149 million children under five are too short for their age (stunted), 45 million children under five do not weigh enough for their height (wasted) and 39 million children under the age of five weigh too much for their height. Alarmingly, the data further suggest that many children lack nutritious food with essential vitamins and minerals leading to high child mortality before the age of five.
In a further announcement by UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in relation to the 2022 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI), that global hunger has risen to as many as 828 million in 2021. This is an increase of 46 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although positive strides have been made in food security maintenance, global trends in child undernutrition continue to be a major concern. This concern is also impacted by the war in Ukraine. The war is affecting grain supply and ready-to-use therapeutic foods for children with severe malnutrition. It is against these global nutrition challenges among children that UNICEF has posted a clarion call to the world and the media that “we must take a bolder action now”.
The Media’s Critical Role
The media continues to act as a mechanism for social change. From its agenda setting perspectives, media institutions through critical editorial efforts are able to inform, instruct and educate society on issues that promotes human development and sanctity in society. Thus, the media has the power to interpret issues affecting humanity and subsequently effect the needed action from policy makers, partners and society at large towards a specific development agenda. For instance, how the media frames malnutrition among children could spark the needed action for change. To a larger extent, media’s editorial advocacy could be positioned to create awareness about nutrition deficiencies among children and offer constructive opinions.
In spite of the effective role media could play in setting the necessary social-change and developmental agenda towards the management of child malnutrition, competing editorials decision in news gatekeeping could prevent malnutrition issues from passing through the editor’s news gate. A study on the Ghanaian media’s coverage of child nutrition and health news content analysis depicts the following:
Ghanaian Media Child Health and Nutrition Coverage: Child Nutrition only 2%
Source: Modern Ghana
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