The global food price crisis threatens to cause a global nutrition crisis: New evidence from 1.27 million young children on the effects of inflation

Derek Headey and Marie Ruel ()

Chapter 15 in The Russia-Ukraine conflict and global food security, 2023, pp 77-80 from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Abstract: Frequent food crises with spiking prices have become the new normal in the 21st century, bringing urgency to the task of understanding their nutritional impacts on poor and food insecure populations. In a new analysis of 1.27 million children in 44 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), we show that exposure to food inflation in the womb and first years of life is associated with greater risks of child wasting in the short run and stunting in the long run. Food inflation also poses larger wasting risks for children of poor and landless rural households,; exacerbating existing inequalities. These results show the urgency of policies focused on improving maternal and young child nutrition, and the importance of broadening actions to reduce food price volatility and boost access to nutritious foods.

Keywords: maternal and child health; rural population; child wasting; shock; policies; war; coronavirus; covid-19; agriculture; markets; nutrition; trade; coronavirinae; russia; food security; ukraine; conflicts; coronavirus disease; poverty; prices; climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/140110

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fpr:ifpric:9780896294394_15

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in IFPRI book chapters from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().