According to the UNICEF report, which is based on data assessments of women in nearly every country around the world, over one billion women and adolescent girls struggle from malnourishment, which causes them to be underweight and short in stature, in addition to the lack of vital micronutrients and anaemia.

The number of pregnant women and nursing mothers who are malnourished has climbed by 25% since 2020 in 12 countries in the crux of the global food crisis, the UN children's agency reported recently, emphasising the implications on children's health.

The majority of them live in the world's poorest areas, with South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for 68 percent of underweight women and adolescent girls and 60 percent of those suffering from anaemia.
 
According to UNICEF, these dietary deficits have an influence not only on the health of mothers but also on their offspring, as "poor nutrition is passed down through generations."

Malnutrition not only increases the likelihood of neonatal death, but it can also "impair foetal development, with lifelong consequences for children's nutrition, growth, learning, and future earning capacity."

In accordance with the UNICEF report, "Globally, 51 million children under two years are stunted. We estimate that about half of these these children become stunted during pregnancy and the first six months of life, when a child is fully dependent on the mother for nutrition.”

UNICEF urged that women and girls be provided preference in terms of access to nutritious food and that mandatory initiatives be implemented to "expand large-scale food fortification of routinely consumed foods such as flour, cooking oil, and salt to help reduce micronutrient deficiencies and anaemia in girls and women."