“Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals needed by the body in very small amounts. However, their impact on a body’s health is critical, and deficiency in any of them can cause severe and even life-threatening conditions. They perform a range of functions, including enabling the body to produce enzymes, hormones and other substances needed for normal growth and development. Deficiencies in iron, vitamin A, and iodine are the most common around the world, particularly in children and pregnant women. Low- and middle-income countries bear the disproportionate burden of micronutrient deficiencies.  Micronutrient deficiencies can cause visible and dangerous health conditions, but they can also lead to less clinically notable reductions in energy level, mental clarity, and overall capacity. This can lead to reduced educational outcomes, reduced work productivity and increased risk from other diseases and health conditions.  Many of these deficiencies are preventable through nutrition education and consumption of a healthy diet containing diverse foods, as well as food fortification and supplementation, where needed.  Severe deficiencies in vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamins D, minerals, iron, and iodine may even lead to death by increasing susceptibility to infections, impacting critical bodily functions, and causing complications during pregnancy and early childhood development. Programs reducing micronutrient deficiencies in recent decades have positively improved health and reduced illnesses, but more efforts are needed” widely argued and reported by the World Health Organization.¹

“Maternal and child undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies affect approximately half of the world’s population. These conditions include intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), low birth weight, protein-energy malnutrition, chronic energy deficit of women, and micronutrient deficiencies. Although the rates of stunting or chronic protein-energy malnutrition are increasing in Africa, the absolute numbers of stunted children are much higher in Asia. The four common micronutrient deficiencies include those of iron, iodine, vitamin A, and zinc. All these conditions are responsible directly or indirectly for more than 50% of all under-5 deaths globally. According to more recent estimates, IUGR, stunting and severe wasting are responsible for one third of under-5 mortality. About 12% of deaths among under-5 children are attributed to the deficiency of the four common micronutrients. Despite tremendous progress in different disciplines and unprecedented improvement with many health indicators, persistently high undernutrition rates are a shame to the society. Human development is not possible without taking care to control undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. Poverty, food insecurity, ignorance, lack of appropriate infant and young child feeding practices, heavy burden of infectious illnesses, and poor hygiene and sanitation are factors responsible for the high levels of maternal and child undernutrition in developing countries. These factors can be controlled or removed by scaling up direct nutrition interventions and eliminating the root conditions including female illiteracy, lack of livelihoods, lack of women’s empowerment, and poor hygiene and sanitation.”²