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Children are the primary victims of malnutrition. The Convention on the Right of the Child states that countries should ensure to the maximum extent possible, the survival and development of the child.

In addition, appropriate measures should be adopted to diminish infant and child mortality and combat disease and malnutrition by providing adequate nutritious food.

A nutritional program for malnourished children in 10 undeveloped villages in the Puttalam district was implemented to provide healthcare for more than 1,000 such children under the auspices of the Small Fishers Federation, Pambala, Chilaw. The necessary drugs, medicine, nutrition and supplementary meals are also provided by the Federation to improve their health. Here, the kids being examined by a doctor.

UNICEF has an express mandate to support the elimination of malnutrition because it affects young children alarmingly. Assessing the magnitude of the problem, it is revealed that nutritional anaemia, protein-energy malnutrition, vitamin A deficiency and iodine deficiency disorders are the most serious nutrition problems.

It has been found that 48 per cent of school children in the small scale fishing communities in the island suffer from malnutrition. Lack of vitamin A and colour blindness are the most common deficiencies among them.

And 34 per cent of children who are in the school going age, do not attend school at all. It is a dream for them to get a nutritious meal and to obtain a decent dress to wear.

Their bodies are not grown to normal stature. The young males and females do not attend school. They work as domestic servants in houses and are engaged in cleaning nets under trawler owners or work under prawn farmers.

A nutritional program in 10 undeveloped villages in the Puttalam district was implemented to provide healthcare for more than 1,000 such children under the auspices of the Small Fishers Federation.

Pambala, Chilaw, with funding amounting to rupees forty million from the 'Terre des Hommes" organization ("Earth for Mankind"), the Netherlands, for the needs of forty pre-schools and Mothers' clubs in the districts of Puttalam, Moneragala, Matara and Hambantota, of which in the Puttalam district alone 358 children are attended to including over 400 mothers.

The necessary drugs, medicine, nutrition and supplementary meals are also provided by the Federation to improve their health.

In addition to the provision of vitamins and drugs, health camps were conducted to safeguard their health. Their health facilities were improved by constructing latrines, which they could not build on their own.

Due to proper care and attention, their inherent colour-blindness, dysentery, worm diseases and anaemia were cured.

It is estimated that about 150 million children under five years are underweight, and more than 20 million suffer from severe malnutrition. Further, 350 million women have nutritional anaemia.

About 40 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, some of whom go blind - and most of them who do, eventually die. Some 250,000 children go blind or are partially blind, lodine deficiency disorders afflict approximately 200 million to 300 million people with goitre, and at least a million suffer from cretinism (deformation).

Recent information suggests that malnutrition is increasing in some parts of the world particularly in Africa, south of Sahara desert.

Malnutrition being one of the most significant global problems, material resources must be mobilised at all levels to resolve it. And because of its magnitude, its catastrophic impact is felt on child and maternal survival due to international political and economic difficulties.

It is known that malnutrition results from inadequate intake of nutrients or diseases that children tend to suffer in infancy. Infectious diseases in particular, affect both the dietary intake as well as other processes.

It is to be noted that the average adult height of children is lower in some countries and communities that in others. Smaller stature indicates that, during infancy or childhood, an individual has been deprive of proper nourishment, indicating poor nutrition and ill-health.

Vitamin deficiencies were the primary concern some years back, and the strategy adopted was to achieve' Health for All' by the Year 2000. It is within this conceptual framework that some of the most successful nutrition-oriented programmes have been implemented.

UNICEF adopted a number of goals for development of children which included reducing infant, child and maternal mortality rates; improving nutrition; ensuring access to safe drinking water and sanitary means of excreta disposal; and promoting basic education and literacy.

Underweight (low weight-for-age); wasting (low weight-for-height); and stunting (low height-for-age) are the consequences of malnutrition which should be checked.

Inadequate dietary intake and diseases lead to malnutrition or eventual death of young children and mothers. On the other hand, infectious diseases impede dietary intake, resulting in severe malnutrition.

Health and education in nutrition are important at all levels for families. Promotion of breast-feeding, proper nutrition and provision of certain essential drugs are necessary.

Immunisation, household food security, improved feeding practices, maternal and child care, environmental sanitation and clean drinking water are necessary; literacy and education too are essential requirements for sound growth in order to eliminate malnutrition in children.