Previously submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (no longer under consideration since May 03, 2023)
Date Submitted: May 2, 2023
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The Urgent Need to Address Child Malnutrition in Rural Areas of Pakistan: Lessons from the 2022 Floods
ABSTRACT
This article highlights the issue of malnutrition among children in rural areas of Pakistan, specifically in the aftermath of the 2022 floods. The author, who is a medical student and president of an NGO, presents a case of severe wasting and marasmus in a 2-year-old child, which is attributed to chronic malnutrition rather than the flood. The article emphasizes the importance of maternal education on breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices, as well as the need for ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) in areas of food scarcity. The article concludes that a multi-pronged approach is required to combat malnutrition and prevent its devastating consequences on children's growth and development. The article's findings are significant as malnutrition is a global issue that contributes to millions of deaths each year, and the author's insights can inform policies and interventions aimed at addressing this problem.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.