The Effects of Hunger on Physical and Cognitive Development of Children

Abstract

Four emaciated children sit alone in the scorching sun outside their house in Tambalal village in West Pokot County. As we approach the gate, one of them crawls away. The children, between the ages of two and seven, look sickly. Neighbours say their mother left after a row with her husband. The villagers add that the children's father is a labourer and an alcoholic. The four children do not go to school. A neighbor, Lilian Timale, says the abandoned children have not eaten for a week. "When we came here, their eyes were white and they could barely walk because their legs were swollen. I went back home and brought them milk and flour. Their father later came and sold the food. I came back with more and cooked for them," she says. Mrs Timale adds that the children were diagnosed with typhoid and malaria when she took them to a local dispensary. School feeding programs have been disrupted by the ravaging drought. Tambalal Primary School Deputy headteacher Emanuel Kasiwai said the institution had not received food for 10 years. "A child collapsed during the assembly recentry because he had not eaten for days," he said, adding that the number of pupils had dropped from 400 to 200. The school has no feeding programme. (Kakai, October 16, 2016, para. 1.) West Pokot is 1 of 13 counties in Kenya that were severely impacted by hunger in 2016. This county also has one of the highest rates of malnutrition in the country. Nearly half of children under 5 years of age are stunted and more than a third are underweight. Kapenguria County Hospital in West Pokot receives 70-100 children each month who are affected by malnutrition (Republic of Kenya 2016).