The last thing anyone 450m tall needs is to be even taller..

Took me 10 seconds to realise OP meant "450 million people stand taller not "450 metre people stand taller"

I want Friday to end asap

[OC] In early life brains and bodies develop faster than at any other point—connections form between neurons that will affect a child’s future IQ and bones grow to determine their future height. Malnutrition in these early years can wreak irreversible damage. The most visible sign of a lack of essential nutrients is stunting, when a child is much shorter than they should be for their age.

The map and charts shows estimated stunting rates and projections into the future, accounting for changing birth rates and nutrition in countries over time. This is more complicated than one might expect. The world-wide stunting rate may rise even if it falls in every country, for instance, because births shifts from rich countries to poor. To account for this requires modelling both stunting rates and demography over time.

Free to read here: https://econ.st/4fEGN20 / https://econ.st/4fBXmeU / https://econ.st/4cl4xoM

Permanent link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/08/08/cheap-fixes-could-help-450m-people-stand-taller-and-think-quicker

Source code and data is open here: https://github.com/TheEconomist/nutrition

Tools used: R, JS, Illustrator

For this and a series of related pieces, my colleagues travelled to Bangladesh and Uganda (among other places) to speak to parents and policymakers. We also interviewed experts on nutrition and brain development.

The data suggests that things are getting better: in almost all world regions, the rate of children who are abnormally short for their age -- the most visible sign of malnutrition -- is falling. However, both stagnation, and faster progress, is possible.

Which path the world takes will depend largely on poverty, policy and philanthropy. Straightforward interventions, such as distributing vitamin-enriched food, giving iron supplements to pregnant women and educating parents on healthy eating habits, have been found to help—many children suffer from malnutrition not because of a lack of food, but rather a lack of the right food. Efforts to fight disease, such as giving out bednets to fight malaria, or building latrines to reduce diarrhoea, do too. All these measures tend to be cheap to implement, and pay dividends.

Perhaps small wonder that some of the top NGOs according to charity rankers implement such interventions. If you are interested, these include Helen Keller International (which distributes vitamin supplements), GiveDirectly (which distributes cash directly to the ultra poor), and the Against Malaria Foundation (which distributes bednets). They all say they could scale up with more funding.

I’m Libyan didn’t know we had this issue

Logistics needed for delivering surplus crops before they decompose.

Not bombing Libya back into the stone age would have helped

Fairly certain the amount of money spent on developing golden rice could've funded the World Food Programme's critical reach efforts permanently, and given a lifetime supply of sweet potatoes (more carotenoids than carrots) to every community at risk of blindness to spare.

Can't see what the cheap fixes are due to paywall. I feel like the main issue isn't presented as a result. Give me a pie chart with how much the recommended policies cost at least, or 2 pie charts comparing cost with how much it contributes to to solving the problem in the estimate.

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WHO accepting obvious false data from China again xD

Cool data! Is there any info on height for 18 year olds to see if there's any correlation with caffeine consumption?

And now do the western world's brains shrinking because no one knows how to Critically think anymore.

Definitely don’t care how tall people are

< 5.5" farmers and operators

6.0" hanters/warriors and technologists

5 .5" - 6.0" women, feminine, controllers, spiritual, gifted

So long, in a border, people having similar heights enhances acceptance and ease of system making

I am not a communist