Health and Wellness

The Department only routine collects information of children under five years old treated for malnutrition. For 2023 to date:

The Statistics SA Child Poverty Report 2020 presents the child poverty levels in South Africa based on data collected by Stats SA through the Living Conditions Survey (LCS) conducted in 2014/15. The child poverty levels in this report are derived using the Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) methodology. MODA uses a child as a unit of analysis and adopts indicators that are child specific and relevant to the well-being of the child. The analysis uses data from the Living Condition Survey (2015) and focusses on the following dimensions of child well-being: nutrition, health, child development, education, child protection, WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), housing and information. A child is considered multidimensionally poor if she/he is deprived in at least three dimensions out of the seven analysed. The national deprivation headcount rate stands at 62,1% of multidimensionally poor children. More than 1 out of 3 children residing in the Western Cape are multidimensionally poor (37,1%).

The 2008 Youth Risk behaviour Survey’s findings on Nutrition concluded:

The prevalence of underweight (weight-for-age) was 8.4%; stunting (height-for-age) was 13.1%; wasting (weight-for height) was 4.4%; 19.7% of learners were found to be overweight and 5.3% of learners were classified as obese. The Northern Cape, North West, Limpopo and Free State, provinces in South Africa, showed a higher prevalence of under-nutrition; while the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, the more industrialized provinces, showed a higher prevalence for over-nutrition.