BETTER, BUT NOT QUITE GOOD

THE year 2026 has not been a kind year for Pakistan. In terms of headlines, doomsday is right around the corner. Economic crises, energy crises, debt renegotiations, political uncertainty, inflation, floods, poverty and other issues that might turn a beautiful morning dark and murky have dominated the national conversation. Health issues in particular have people running to check if they are taking the right and the right quantity of medicine. This is so because we have, generally speaking, not been kind to our own cause. Against this backdrop, there is something genuinely heartening in a story emerging from Pakistan: the country’s long-running stunting crisis is showing signs of improvement. The progress is neither spectacular nor complete, and it would be misleading to suggest that Pakistan has solved its nutrition problem, but after decades in which child stunting remained stubbornly high, evidence from national surveys and more recent research suggests that concerted interventions can make a difference.

As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), stunting is the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection and inadequate psychosocial stimulation. Some of the consequences of stunting include poor cognition and educational performance, low adult wages, lost productivity and, when accompanied by excessive weight-gain later in childhood, an increased risk of nutrition-related chronic diseases in adult life. Stunting is not simply a question of a child being shorter than other children. It is the result of chronic lack of proper nutrition.

Stunting has been observed to begin early, often during pregnancy or the first two years of life. This is the time when insufficient maternal nutrition, poor diets, repeated infections and unhealthy living conditions can permanently affect growth and development for the rest of the life. In this light, it is quite rightly labelled as a threat to human capital. And, in Pakistan, where the economy is always jumping from one crisis to another, it is seen as a debilitating factor.

Pakistan’s stunting problem is not a new one. Progress in tackling the problem has been one with hiccups. Pakistan had a stunting prevalence of about 48 per cent in 1965, falling to 36.3pc by 1994. But the gains then stalled and reversed. Stunting was measured at 41.6pc in 2001 and 43.7pc in 2011. This progress can be equated with the growth of the economy. The World Bank notes that Pakistan’s growth has historically been low and volatile, with per-capita output increasing by only about 2.2pc a year over the past two decades and around 40pc of children aged under five (