UNICEF: Poor nutrition kills millions of kids each year

UNITED NATIONS — Poor nutrition contributes to the deaths of some 5.6 million children every year, and the world has fallen far short in efforts to reduce hunger by half before 2015, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday.

In its report, UNICEF said one of every four children under age 5, including 146 million children in the developing world, is underweight.

The most troublesome area in the world is South Asia, where 46 percent of children are underweight. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan account for half of the world's underweight children even though they have only 30 percent of the world's population of children under 5.

"Children in this region live in an almost constant state of emergency," said UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman. She said poor nutrition, particularly the lack of iodine, is diminishing the brainpower of children worldwide, sometimes by several IQ points.

China has been one success story, the report said. According to UNICEF data, China has reduced its number of underweight children by half. The Middle East and North Africa were the only regions where poor nutrition rates have actually increased since 1990.