Famine Scales - Nutrition Levels

Nutrition Levels

Various nutrition benchmarks have been proposed as the cut-off points for food insecurity levels. The United Nations Refugee Nutrition Information System lists a number of such indicator cutoff points:

• Wasting - defined as less than -2 standard deviations in body weight, usually for children between six and 59 months

• 5-10% = normal in African populations in non-drought conditions
• Greater than 20% = "serious situation"
• Greater than 40% = "severe crisis"

• Oedema due to kwashiorkor (swollen belly) is always a "cause for concern"
• Crude mortality rate (CMR), i.e. number of deaths per ten thousand people in a time span

• 1/10,000/day = "serious situation"
• Greater than 2/10,000/day = "emergency out of control"

• Under-five mortality rate (U5MR), i.e. number of deaths of children under five years of age within a time span

• 2/10,000/day = "serious situation"
• 4/10,000/day = "emergency out of control"

The use of these cut-offs is contentious. Some argue that a crude mortality rate of one death per ten thousand people per day is already a full-scale emergency. Others note that while most indicators are focused on children, parents will often reduce their own food consumption in favor of their children. Child malnutrition may thus be a trailing indicator, indicating non-emergency levels even after adult malnutrition has reached crisis levels. It has also been noted that malnutrition is often not directly related to food availability; malnutrition is often the result of disease or poor child-care practices, even with adequate food availability.