The Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN) said yesterday that 41.1 per cent of Nigerian children are stunted.
It added that 19.2 per cent of the 41.1 per cent is severely stunted, with the case being worse in the Northwest, where the rate is 58.2 per cent.
The NSN, at its 56th Scientific Conference and Annual General Meeting of the society in Lagos, also said that almost half of women of reproductive age are anaemic.
It pointed out that Nigeria’s latest nutrition indicators remain a major warning and called for urgent action.
Also at the event, Vice-President Kashim Shettima said only six per cent of pregnant Nigerian women completed at least 180 days of iron-containing supplementation in 2024, far below the national target of 70 per cent by 2035.
NSN, through its President, Salisu Abubakar, said that Nigeria has continued to face significant micronutrient deficiencies, particularly in the intake of vitamin A, zinc and folic acid.
The society lamented that Nigeria is considerably off the trajectory required to achieve the World Health Assembly nutrition targets and Sustainable Development Goal 2.2 by 2030.
It urged the government to connect nutrition-specific interventions with food systems, health systems, education, social protection and water, sanitation and hygiene.
Vice President Shettima, who was represented by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Health and Focal Person on Nutrition in the Office of the Vice President, Mrs Uju Rochas-Anwukah, also said only 30 per cent of women of reproductive age achieved minimum dietary diversity, against a 60 per cent target by 2035.
Shettima said the figures demonstrate the scale of the nutrition challenge facing the country and its implications for human capital development.
He warned that nutrition policies should be judged by the lives they improve rather than the number of policies and regulations produced.
‘Policy fails when it treats those stages at separate rooms,’ she said, stressing that nutrition must be addressed as a continuum from childhood through adolescence and adulthood.
According to him, anaemia resulting from poor nutrition weakens women and children, worsens pregnancy outcomes, reduces learning capacity and ultimately affects national productivity.
He called for stronger coordination among the health, agriculture, education, social protection, water and sanitation sectors, as well as greater involvement of the private sector and local governments.
The Vice President said the National Council on Nutrition’s Nutrition 774 initiative remained the government’s framework for taking nutrition interventions to all 774 local government areas and placing responsibility closer to communities.
He also urged the effective use of the national nutrition dashboard as an accountability tool for evidence-based governance.
Shettima said food fortification should be assessed based on its impact on reducing micronutrient deficiencies rather than the number of regulations issued.
He further called for adequate and timely financing of nutrition programmes, insisting that budgets must be released on time and public expenditure be subjected to measurable community impact.
Shettima pointed out that ‘good intentions do not feed a child.
NSN’s Board of Trustees Chairman, Muhammad Sanusi, called for nutrition to be treated as a central pillar of Nigeria’s development and human-capital agenda rather than a programme reserved for moments of crisis.
Sanusi said Nigeria must move from fragmented interventions to coordinated systems, short-term projects to sustained investment and commitments on paper to accountability in practice.
He also urged increased and protected nutrition financing through dedicated budget lines, timely fiscal releases and expenditure tracking.
The board chairman demanded accelerated action in the Northwest and other high-burden states, saying equity should be at the centre of the national nutrition response.
He called for the urgent passage and implementation of the Nutritionists Registration Council of Nigeria Bill, saying a statutory framework was needed to regulate the profession and protect the public.
Sanusi also called on stakeholders to ensure that findings from national nutrition surveys translated into state-specific policies, budgets and interventions.
The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, said the agency would continue collaborating with the NSN to improve food safety, nutrition and consumer protection.
Adeyeye, in a goodwill message to the conference, highlighted NAFDAC’s recently launched ‘Read the Food Label’ campaign, urging greater public awareness and collaboration among regulators, nutrition professionals, academia, industry and policymakers.
She said sustained collaboration was necessary to ensure Nigerians had access to safe, wholesome, nutritious and appropriately labelled foods.
The keynote speaker, Dr Mansur Muhtar, warned that Nigeria cannot continue to rely heavily on development partners to finance nutrition programmes as global funding priorities and resources come under pressure.
Muhtar called for greater domestic financing, saying the government must allocate sufficient resources to nutrition and protect such funds from political and fiscal risks.
He also urged the government to ensure that increased funding produced measurable results.
According to him, every naira allocated to nutrition should be linked to outcomes, with stronger systems for transparency, monitoring and reporting.
He advocated innovative financing mechanisms capable of attracting private capital into nutrition, while urging the private sector to support food systems through responsible investment, philanthropy and corporate social responsibility.
Muhtar said financing alone would not resolve Nigeria’s nutrition crisis, stressing the need for effective policies, strong institutions and accountability.
He also called for a broad coalition involving government, parliament, private sector, civil society, academia, media, traditional institutions and communities.
Katsina State Governor Dikko Radd said at the event that his administration has spent N1.7 billion on targeted nutrition interventions aimed at reducing malnutrition among vulnerable families in the state.
Radda, represented by his deputy, Faruk Jobe, added that the government also spent more than N30 billion on food and other support for vulnerable households.
He said the state had introduced six months of paid maternity leave to support exclusive breastfeeding and scaled up iron and folic acid supplementation for pregnant women.
The governor also revealed plans by his government to establish a local nutrition food factory to produce nutritious food for children.
The Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Health, Dayo Lajide, said nutrition requires coordinated action across government ministries, professional bodies, academia, development partners, communities and the private sector.
Lajide, who chaired the opening ceremony, said Lagos State is strengthening collaboration across health, education, agriculture and food security, social protection, water and sanitation and other sectors because nutrition outcomes were influenced by factors beyond healthcare.
He called for stronger evidence-informed policies, improved nutrition data, better surveillance and monitoring systems and innovative approaches to reach vulnerable groups, including women, children, adolescents, older persons and economically disadvantaged communities.
He also urged stakeholders to ensure that the conference produced practical actions and measurable improvements rather than resolutions and presentations alone.
The NSN conference theme is ‘Delivering Better Nutrition for All: Connecting the Dots Across Life Cycles, Systems and Sectors.’