Stunting is the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation. Children are defined as stunted if their height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the WHO Child Growth Standards median.
Stunting in early life -- particularly in the first 1000 days from conception until the age of two - impaired growth has adverse functional consequences on the child. Some of those consequences 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.
Childhood stunting is considered the best overall indicator of children's well-being and an accurate reflection of social inequalities in communitie.
In 2010, it was found that 171 million child was stunted compared to 167 million in developing countries. Globally, childhood stunting decreased from 39.7% in 1990 to 26.7% in 2010. This trend is expected to reach 21•8 %, or 142 million, in 2020.
In Egypt: the incidence of children with stunting is 21.4%.-