World - Malnutrition prevalence

Prevalence of underweight, weight for age (% of children under 5)

Prevalence of underweight, weight for age (% of children under 5) in World was 12.60 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 20 years was 20.48 in 2000, while its lowest value was 12.60 in 2020.

Definition: Prevalence of underweight children is the percentage of children under age 5 whose weight for age is more than two standard deviations below the median for the international reference population ages 0-59 months. The data are based on the WHO's child growth standards released in 2006.

Source: UNICEF, WHO, World Bank: Joint child malnutrition estimates (JME). Aggregation is based on UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank harmonized dataset (adjusted, comparable data) and methodology.

See also:

Year Value
2000 20.48
2001 19.99
2002 19.57
2003 19.20
2004 18.83
2005 18.43
2006 18.01
2007 17.57
2008 17.12
2009 16.66
2010 16.21
2011 15.75
2012 15.30
2013 14.88
2014 14.47
2015 14.10
2016 13.73
2017 13.42
2018 13.13
2019 12.86
2020 12.60

Classification

Topic: Health Indicators

Sub-Topic: Nutrition