Malnutrition includes undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight, and obesity. In 2024, an estimated 150.2 million children under 5—23.2% of children in that age group—were stunted globally. The same year, 42.8 million were affected by wasting, 12.2 million by severe wasting, and 35.5 million were living with overweight. These estimates show why malnutrition statistics must be read as a broad picture of nutrition, not only as a measure of hunger.
Contents
- The global child malnutrition picture
- Stunting by region and income group
- Wasting and severe wasting
- Child overweight and the double burden
- Maternal and micronutrient malnutrition
- Low birth weight and longer-term patterns
- Healthy-diet affordability and child food poverty
The global child malnutrition picture
The 2024 global estimates for children under 5 cover different forms of malnutrition and should not be added together. A child may be represented in more than one measure, while each indicator describes a separate nutritional condition.
| Indicator | Global estimate | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Stunting | 150.2 million (23.2%) | 2024 |
| Wasting | 42.8 million (6.6%) | 2024 |
| Severe wasting | 12.2 million (1.9%) | 2024 |
| Overweight | 35.5 million (5.5%) | 2024 |
Source: UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Group, Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates 2025 edition.
Stunting reflects impaired growth associated with chronic or recurrent undernutrition, while wasting describes a child who is too thin for their height. Severe wasting is the more extreme category of wasting. Overweight represents a different form of malnutrition, linked to excess weight for height in this age group.
The longer trend is mixed. The estimated number of children under 5 affected by stunting fell from 200.0 million in 2012 to 150.2 million in 2024. Over the same period, the number affected by overweight moved from 36.3 million to 35.5 million. The figures describe global totals, so they do not show the different experiences of individual countries or communities.
The World Health Organization reports that around 45% of deaths among children under 5 are linked to undernutrition. This is the latest WHO estimate published in 2024, and it communicates the scale of risk associated with undernutrition without being a count of deaths in a particular year. WHO, Malnutrition.
Stunting by region and income group
Asia contained 76.8 million stunted children under 5 in 2024, compared with 64.8 million in Africa. Latin America and the Caribbean contained 5.8 million, while Europe contained 1.2 million. These are counts of children, not prevalence rates, so population size matters when comparing regions.
Globally, stunting prevalence among children under 5 was 23.2% in 2024. The distribution by World Bank income group also shows that stunting is not confined to the lowest-income countries. Lower-middle-income countries were home to 59% of children affected by stunting, upper-middle-income countries to 28%, low-income countries to 11%, and high-income countries to 1%.
| Income group | Share of children affected by stunting, 2024 |
|---|---|
| Lower-middle income | 59% |
| Upper-middle income | 28% |
| Low income | 11% |
| High income | 1% |
The shares describe where affected children lived, rather than the prevalence within each income group. They should therefore not be interpreted as saying that 59% of children in lower-middle-income countries were stunted. The underlying global estimate and income-group distribution are from the Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates 2025 edition.
India’s latest modelled stunting prevalence among children under 5 was 33% in 2024. This country estimate comes from UNICEF’s Child Nutrition Report 2025, and it is not interchangeable with the global regional counts above.
Wasting and severe wasting
Wasting prevalence among children under 5 was 6.6% globally in 2024, down from 7.4% in 2012. Severe wasting prevalence was 1.9% in 2024. The change from 2012 to 2024 is a prevalence comparison, while the 2024 count was 42.8 million children affected by wasting and 12.2 million affected by severe wasting.
Southern Asia had a wasting prevalence of 15.1% among children under 5 in 2024. This regional prevalence is higher than the global estimate, but it should not be used to infer a count without additional population data.
Asia accounted for 30.0 million children under 5 with wasting in 2024. Africa accounted for 9.3 million, Latin America and the Caribbean for 2.7 million, and Europe for 0.6 million. Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand accounted for 0.1 million. These regional counts use the geography and rounding reported by the Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates.
Three-quarters of children affected by wasting lived in lower-middle-income countries in 2024. As with the stunting income-group figures, this is a distribution of affected children, not the wasting prevalence among all children in that income group. UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Group, Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates 2025 edition.
Child overweight and the double burden
Child overweight coexists with undernutrition in the global malnutrition picture. In 2024, 35.5 million children under 5, or 5.5% globally, were living with overweight. Asia accounted for 16.3 million of these children, Africa for 9.7 million, Latin America and the Caribbean for 4.1 million, Europe for 2.6 million, and Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand for 0.3 million.
The distribution by income group was also concentrated outside the high-income group: lower-middle-income countries contained 38% of children under 5 affected by overweight, and upper-middle-income countries contained 35% in 2024. These percentages indicate the location of affected children, not the rate of overweight within either income group.
The global number of children under 5 affected by overweight was 36.3 million in 2012 and 35.5 million in 2024. That small change in the global count does not mean the underlying pattern was identical in every region. It also does not erase the distinction between overweight and stunting or wasting; the estimates describe separate indicators.
For older age groups, WHO counted an estimated 390 million children and adolescents aged 5–19 who were overweight in 2022, including 160 million living with obesity. Among adults aged 18 and older, WHO counted 2.5 billion people who were overweight in 2022, including 890 million living with obesity. WHO also counted about 390 million underweight adults worldwide in 2022. These adult and adolescent figures use different age groups and a different measurement year from the 2024 under-5 estimates. WHO, Malnutrition.
Maternal and micronutrient malnutrition
Anaemia is a major nutrition-related condition affecting women of reproductive age. Globally, anaemia affected 30.7% of women aged 15–49 in 2023. The prevalence was 30.5% among non-pregnant women aged 15–49 and 35.5% among pregnant women in the same age range.
Regional figures show substantial variation. In the WHO African Region, anaemia prevalence was 36.5% among women aged 15–49 and 43.0% among pregnant women aged 15–49 in 2023. In the Region of the Americas, prevalence among women aged 15–49 was 18.3%.
The global estimate for women aged 15–49 was 29.3% in 2000 and 30.7% in 2023. This comparison covers a long period and indicates that the global prevalence estimate was higher in 2023 than in 2000. It is not a measure of how an individual woman’s status changed.
Source: WHO global anaemia estimates: key findings, 2025. The source distinguishes pregnant and non-pregnant women, so those categories should not be combined with the overall estimate as though they were separate populations.
Low birth weight and longer-term patterns
Low birth weight is another indicator used to understand nutrition and health around birth. Global low birth weight prevalence was 15.0% in 2012 and 14.7% in 2020. The latest figure in this comparison is from 2020, not 2024, and the two percentages should be read as estimates for their stated years.
The change from 15.0% to 14.7% is modest at the global level. It does not provide enough information to compare individual countries, explain causes, or determine whether progress was evenly distributed. WHO, Global nutrition targets 2030: low birth weight brief.
Taken together, the child and maternal figures describe connected but distinct stages of nutrition. The 2024 estimates for stunting, wasting, severe wasting, and overweight concern children under 5. The 2023 anaemia estimates concern women aged 15–49, and the low birth weight comparison ends in 2020. Keeping those populations and dates separate is essential when reading malnutrition statistics.
Healthy-diet affordability and child food poverty
Access to a healthy diet is an important context for nutrition outcomes. In 2024, 31.9% of people worldwide were unable to afford a healthy diet, equivalent to 2.6046 billion people. The global share fell from 38.4% in 2017 to 31.9% in 2024, but the remaining number of people was still measured in billions.
Affordability differed sharply by income group in 2024. In low-income countries, 72.0% of people—544.7 million—were unable to afford a healthy diet. In lower-middle-income countries, the figure was 46.6%, or 1,452.9 million people. In upper-middle-income countries, it was 19.4%, or 551.2 million people.
| Income group | Unable to afford a healthy diet, 2024 | Number of people |
|---|---|---|
| Low income | 72.0% | 544.7 million |
| Lower-middle income | 46.6% | 1,452.9 million |
| Upper-middle income | 19.4% | 551.2 million |
Source: FAO, Table A1.6: Affordability of a Healthy Diet, 2017–2024. The percentages and counts describe people unable to afford a healthy diet, not people diagnosed with malnutrition.
Child food poverty focuses on the quality and diversity of food available to young children. Around 181 million children under 5, or 27%, were living in severe child food poverty in early childhood, according to UNICEF’s 2024 report using the latest available country data. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa together contained 68% of these 181 million children.
Children in severe child food poverty were up to 50% more likely to experience wasting than children not in that category. The report also found that severe child food poverty prevalence was three times higher in countries with a high prevalence of child stunting than in other countries. These are reported associations and comparisons; they do not by themselves establish that food poverty was the sole cause of an individual child’s wasting or stunting. UNICEF, Child Food Poverty: Nutrition Deprivation in Early Childhood.