Framing Child Nutrition in Developing Countries: A Human Security Perspective

Child deaths due to the insidious malnutrition epidemic are a seminal challenge to human security in low and middle-income countries. In addition to hunger interfering with human potential, poor nutritional status leads to long-term health inequalities and disabling conditions. Reducing child mortality is one of the Millennium Developmental Goals, and one of the primordial processes to achieve it is through improving child nutrition. However, the nutrition intervention programs as a part of the broader development framework have scarcely percolated in the deprived communities. With changing agendas in global health it is time that child nutrition is embedded in the inclusive and evolving framework of human security. This will also have a futuristic bearing on development of the human security metrics. National initiatives have been limited to vertically systematized nutrition alleviation programs. The policy direction developed here suggests that child nutrition policies be integrated into comprehensive approaches like that of human security. Such integration shall provide an opportunity to research the issues in policy congruence when implementing newer frameworks.