A/HRC/19/59 acute deficiency, leading to blindness and to increased mortality. Between four billion and five billion people suffer from iron deficiency, including half of the pregnant women and children under 5 in developing countries, and an estimated two billion are anaemic. Iron deficiency impairs growth, cognitive development and immune function, and it leads children to perform less well in school and adults to be less productive. Iodine and zinc deficiencies also have adverse impacts on health and reduce the chances of child survival. About 30 per cent of households in the developing world do not consume iodized salt, and children born to highly iodine-deficient mothers are likely to experience learning disabilities or cretinism. Finally, lack of certain vitamins and minerals may also affect physical and mental development and the immune system. 6 8. Like undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency or ―hidden hunger‖ is a violation of a child‘s right to a standard of living adequate for the child‘s physical and mental development, and to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, recognized under article 6, paragraph 2, and article 24, paragraph 2 (c), of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The environment, not genetics, explains differences in child development between regions. The WHO Child Growth Standards demonstrate that infants and children from geographically diverse regions of the world experience very similar growth patterns when their health and nutrition needs are met, so that all children have in principle the same development potential. 7 States, therefore, have a duty to support exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding, combined with adequate complementary foods, until the second birthday of the child; and to establish food systems that can ensure each individual‘s access not only to sufficient caloric intake, but also to sufficiently diverse diets, providing the full range of micronutrients required. C. Overweight and obesity 9. An additional nutritional challenge concerns people whose caloric intakes exceed their needs. Today, more than one billion people worldwide are overweight (with a bodily mass index (BMI) >25) and at least 300 million are obese (BMI >30). Overweight and obesity cause, worldwide, 2.8 million deaths, so that today 65 per cent of the world‘s population live in a country (all high-income countries and most middle-income countries) where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.8 In a country such as the United States of America, this means that today‘s children could have shorter life expectancies than their parents.9 But obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) linked, in particular, to unhealthy diets are no longer limited to rich countries (see figures 1 and 2). It is estimated that by 2030, 5.1 million people will die annually before the age of 60 from such diseases in poor countries, up from 3.8 million today.10 Obesity and overweight affect 50 per cent or more of the population in 19 of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries,11 but they have become public health challenges in all regions (see figure 2). Death and disease from NCDs now outstrip communicable diseases in every region except Africa, and it is expected that NCD deaths will increase globally by 15 per cent between 2010 6 7 8 9 10 11 See www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_bigpicture.html. See www.who.int/entity/childgrowth/2_why.pdf. WHO, Global Status Report on Noncommunicable Diseases 2010 (Geneva, 2011), p. 2; WHO, Global Health Risks: Mortality and Burden of Disease Attributable to Selected Major Risks (Geneva, 2009), pp. 16 and 17. S.J. Olshansky and others, ―A potential decline in life expectancy in the United States in the 21st century,‖ New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 352, No. 11 (2005), p. 1143. R. Beaglehole and others, ―Priority actions for the non-communicable disease crisis‖, Lancet, vol. 377, No. 9775 (2011), pp. 1438-47 OECD, Health at a Glance 2011 (Paris, 2011), p. 54. 5