Because of widespread malnutrition, South Africa has one of the highest child stunting rates in the world. Stunting affects both the children concerned and reduces national economic growth, the VAT-free chicken proposal states.
Stunting is caused by chronic malnutrition, and is therefore a largely preventable condition.
“Stunting can cause irreversible physical and cognitive deficits which can affect a child’s capacity to reach their full growth and development potential. Further consequences include poor educational attainment, low productivity and an increased life-long risk of nutrition-related chronic diseases.
“Children who are stunted are more likely to drop out of school, face poorer health and economic outcomes and have stunted children themselves.”
The submission cited research that estimated that South Africa has one of the highest rates of stunting in the world among children under five, with a rate in excess of 28.8%. In poorer households, the stunting rate is even higher (36% in the poorest quintile vs 12% in the richest quintile).
Low household income has been identified as a primary risk factor for stunting.
“The extent of stunting in South Africa is much greater than would be expected for a similar middle-income country and far higher than many comparable developing countries with similar Human Development Indices such as Gabon, Libya and Egypt.”
Chicken has the nutrients children need
The submission says stunting is the best indicator of a child’s well-being and that a child’s linear growth potential is largely determined by the time they turn two years old.
“Access to nutritious foods by the child and mother (especially during pregnancy and in the first 1000 days of a child’s life), leading to chronic or recurring malnutrition, is a key determinant of whether that child will be stunted or not,” the submission says.
Stunting is not determined solely by the number of calories consumed by children but also by the quality and diversity of their and their pregnant or breast-feeding mothers’ diets.
Nutrients that are important for preventing stunting include zinc, iodine, iron, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B12, folic acid and protein. Children with low protein intake are estimated to be four times more likely to be stunted than children with adequate protein intake. Protein can also help stunted children catch up on growth.
Essential amino acids, derived from protein, are critical to growth as well as other processes. They are important in childhood because they are needed for, amongst other things, the repair of damaged body tissues, muscle building, biochemical regulating, serum formation, haemoglobin, enzymes, hormones, antibodies.
“By allowing chicken to be zero-rated, poor households will be in a position to afford more of the protein rich and nutritious product that prevents stunting in children and malnutrition, and/or gain access to protein-rich chicken that would potentially otherwise have been beyond their means,” the submission says.
How stunting holds South Africa back
Stunting also has “important economic consequences,” the submission states.
“It has been estimated that stunting in African and South-Asian countries causes a 9% lower gross domestic product (GDP) per capita than would be the case in the absence of stunting.
“Stunting is the main reason that South Africa has been ranked 88th out of 130 countries on the World Bank Human Capital Index (“HCI”), which measures the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18,” it says.
