Almost one in four children under five is too short for their age because of chronic undernutrition in the first years of life, and progress is too slow to halve that number by 2030.
Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Out of every 100 children under five in the world, how many are stunted, meaning too short for their age?
150.2 million
Children under five who are stunted
23.2% of all children under five, down from 180.4 million in 2012. A modelled estimate.
Data year 2024. Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Group, 2025
42.8 million
Children under five who are wasted
6.6% of children under five at any one time, 12.2 million of them (1.9%) severely wasted.
Data year 2024. Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Group, 2025
41.7 million
Stunted children in low-income countries
35.8% of young children in these countries, and 5 million more than in 2012 even though the share fell from 39.6%.
Data year 2024. Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Group, 2025
Modelled estimates from the 2025 edition of the Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates, which reports these two reference years. Over the same period the number of stunted children fell from 180.4 to 150.2 million. Earlier editions use different models, so their values should not be mixed with these.
The global target is to reduce the number of stunted children to 90 million by 2030. At the current pace it will be missed by 46.0 million children, and only about a quarter of countries are on track to halve their number of stunted children. The JME agencies also judge the world off track for the 2030 targets on wasting and overweight.
Asia is home to 51% of the world's stunted children and Africa to 43%. More than three-quarters of all children with severe wasting live in Asia.
Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Group, 2025Southern Asia has 56.4 million stunted children, more than any other sub-region, and 24.4 million wasted children, over half of the world total. Its wasting prevalence of 13.6% is twice the global average.
Source: United Nations Statistics Division, 2026In 2024, 35.8% of children under five in low-income countries were stunted, against 4.0% in high-income countries. Low-income countries are the only income group where the number of stunted children has grown since 2012.
Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Group, 2025Boys are more likely to be stunted than girls: 24.4% compared with 21.9% in 2024, or about 81 million boys and 69 million girls.
Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Group, 2025Each country is shaded by its latest available value, so you can see where the gap is widest. Hover or tap a country, search for one, or open the full table.
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Values in % of children under 5.
Share of children under five who are too short for their age. Modelled 2024 estimates for 162 countries from the Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates; countries without enough survey data have no value.
Source: UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates, via World Bank Open Data. Latest year available per country; years differ.
Values load from World Bank Open Data. Simplified Natural Earth borders; they imply no position on disputed territories.
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
ModerateBetween 2012 and 2024 the number of stunted children fell from 180.4 to 150.2 million and the number of wasted children from 50.9 to 42.8 million. But the number of stunted children rose in Africa and in low-income countries, where population growth outpaces the decline in prevalence.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateThe main interventions in the first 1,000 days, such as breastfeeding support, maternal nutrition, better feeding of young children and treatment of wasting, are well studied and set out in WHO guidance. Each on its own has a modest effect on stunting, and there is no proven recipe for large, fast declines at national scale.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
LowOnly 30.8% of children aged 6 to 23 months get the minimum variety of foods they need. Exclusive breastfeeding is also still short of its 2030 target, and donor support for breastfeeding programmes has declined.
Stunting estimates are modelled from national surveys and are robust at global level, but surveys are infrequent in many countries. Progress on wasting can be assessed for only about two-thirds of countries, and its snapshot measure understates the yearly burden.
Global prevalence is falling slowly and steadily, but too slowly to meet the 2030 target, and the number of stunted children is still rising in Africa and in low-income countries.
Stunting is the visible result of undernutrition that builds up over months and years, mostly between conception and a child's second birthday. A child whose mother was poorly nourished in pregnancy, who is not breastfed, who eats too few kinds of food once solids begin, or who has repeated infections, falls behind in growth. Wasting is the acute counterpart: a dangerous loss of weight, often during illness or a food crisis. Both are about how children grow, not only about how much food a country or a household has. That makes this page different from the wider hunger page: a family can have enough calories and still have a stunted child if diets lack variety, care is poor or infections are frequent. Fewer than one in three children aged 6 to 23 months worldwide eats the minimum variety of foods recommended for their age.
WHO links nearly half of all deaths of children under five to undernutrition, and stunting holds children back from reaching their physical and cognitive potential. Almost all stunted children live in Asia and Africa, and Africa is the only region where the number has risen significantly since 2012. In low-income countries more than a third of young children are stunted, compared with 4% in high-income countries. Wasting is concentrated in Southern Asia, where its prevalence is about twice the world average.
Health workers measure children's length or height and weight and compare them with the WHO Child Growth Standards, which describe how healthy, well-fed children grow. UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank combine national surveys into the Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (JME), the basis for SDG target 2.2.
Stunting (too short for age)
A child is stunted when height for age is more than two standard deviations below the median of the WHO standards. It reflects chronic or repeated undernutrition rather than a single bad period.
Wasting (too thin for height)
A child is wasted when weight for height is more than two standard deviations below the median; severe wasting is the most extreme form. Wasting usually signals recent, severe weight loss and carries a high risk of death without treatment.
Modelled estimates and snapshots
Global stunting figures are modelled from surveys in 163 countries with at least one data point since 2000. Wasting figures show how many children are wasted at the time of a survey; because children move in and out of wasting during the year and seasons are not adjusted for, they understate the annual burden.
The global target
The 2030 target set under the World Health Assembly and SDG 2.2 is to halve the number of stunted children, to about 90 million, and to keep wasting low. The same target also covers anaemia in women and overweight in children.
What works
Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and continued breastfeeding afterwards protect infants against infection and undernutrition. About 47% of infants under six months are now exclusively breastfed, 8 percentage points more than in 2020. Paid parental leave, baby-friendly hospitals and limits on the marketing of formula help mothers to breastfeed.
Limits
The rate is still below the 2030 target of 60%. Donor support has declined, and only 4% of countries receive at least US$5 per birth in donor funding for breastfeeding programmes.
What works
Much stunting begins in the womb. Iron and folic acid or multiple micronutrient supplements, and extra energy and protein for undernourished pregnant women, improve birth outcomes and give children a better start. They can be delivered through routine antenatal care.
Limits
Many women start antenatal care late or attend irregularly, and taking tablets daily for months is hard to sustain. Supplements do not fix the underlying poverty, workload and poor diets that leave women undernourished.
What works
Counselling for parents on how and what to feed young children, fortified complementary foods and, in food-insecure areas, small daily supplements of a nutrient-rich paste help close the gap between what young children need and what they eat.
Limits
Advice cannot fix diets families cannot afford: only 30.8% of children aged 6 to 23 months worldwide get the minimum variety of foods. Programmes need to run for many months per child, which is costly and hard to sustain.
What works
Health workers screen children with a simple arm-band measurement and treat most cases of severe wasting at home with ready-to-use therapeutic food, referring only children with complications to hospital.
Limits
Treatment helps after a child is already ill and does not prevent the next episode. In 2024, 12.2 million children were severely wasted at any one time, and supplies and screening depend on funding and access that break down in crises.
What works
Stunting has many causes, so the World Bank recommends integrating nutrition services into primary health care and linking them to maternal and child health. It estimates that scaling up proven measures would avert 27 million cases of stunting and save 6.2 million children's lives over a decade, with a return of US$23 per dollar invested.
Limits
This requires an extra US$13 billion a year from 2025 to 2034, and close cooperation between ministries of health, agriculture, water and social affairs that rarely plan or budget together. The return figures are model projections, not observed results.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
Daily sachets of a fortified lipid-based paste mixed into children's food from six months reduced stunting, wasting and deaths in pooled trials. Several countries are adding them to national programmes; the open questions are cost, targeting and keeping supply and daily use steady over many months per child.
A single daily tablet combining many vitamins and minerals is being introduced in place of iron and folic acid alone in a growing number of countries, with the aim of reducing low birthweight. Procurement costs, local production and counselling for pregnant women still need to be worked out at national scale.
Approaches such as teaching caregivers to check their own child's arm circumference, or using one product and dose for moderate and severe wasting, could let more children be treated with fewer resources. Evidence comes mainly from pilot programmes, and WHO guidance accepts some of these only in specific settings.
Smartphone apps and image-based tools to measure length and height, and surveys designed to estimate how many children become wasted over a year, could give faster and more accurate data. Accuracy in field conditions and cost are still being tested.
Implementation gap
Scaling up proven nutrition measures needs an estimated extra US$13 billion a year for ten years, more than three-quarters of it in low- and lower-middle-income countries that have the least fiscal room.
Implementation gap
In Africa the number of stunted children rose from 61.7 million in 2012 to 64.8 million in 2024, and in low-income countries from 36.7 to 41.7 million, because the share of stunted children is falling more slowly than the number of young children is growing.
Implementation gap
Fewer than one in three children aged 6 to 23 months eats the minimum variety of foods. Eggs, dairy, fish, meat, fruit and vegetables are often too expensive or unavailable for poor families.
Coordination gap
Child growth depends on health care, food, water and sanitation, care practices and household income at the same time. Responsibility is spread over several ministries and donors, and programmes are often planned and funded separately.
Knowledge gap
Progress on stunting can be assessed for about 80% of countries and on wasting for only about two-thirds. The JME agencies recommend national surveys every three to five years, which many countries do not manage.
Technology gap
Accurate length measurement needs trained staff, proper boards and calm children, and small errors change prevalence estimates. Simple, reliable tools that community workers can use are still lacking in many places.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
Single interventions reduce stunting only modestly. Which combinations of maternal nutrition, child feeding, health care, water and sanitation, and income support produce large and lasting declines when governments deliver them nationwide?
How much of the harm to growth and learning caused by early stunting can be reversed later in childhood or adolescence, and through which kinds of support?
Globally, boys are more often stunted than girls. How much of this reflects biology, and how much feeding and care practices, and does it change which children programmes should reach first?
Snapshot surveys miss children who become wasted and recover between surveys. How many children are affected over a whole year, and how do wasting and stunting in the same child interact?
Where you work or manage, ask for paid parental leave, breaks and a private space for breastfeeding or expressing milk.
If you donate to child nutrition, choose organisations that report children's growth, recovery rates or diet quality, not only the number of meals or sachets handed out, and consider regular, unearmarked gifts.
Find out how much your government spends on nutrition in its development aid and whether it is being cut, and raise it with your elected representatives.
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UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Group (key findings released 21 July 2025), published 2025
Most recent global modelled estimates (data year 2024): 150.2 million stunted children (23.2%), 42.8 million wasted (6.6%), 12.2 million severely wasted, 35.5 million overweight, regional shares, the 90 million target for 2030 and the projected shortfall of 46.0 million.
UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Group (2025), published 2025
Report with global trends 2012 to 2024 (26.4% to 23.2% stunted), figures by income group and sex, the rise in stunted children in Africa, data coverage for assessing progress, and caveats on wasting estimates.
United Nations Statistics Division (data from UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank and FAO), published 2026
Official SDG progress report for target 2.2: stunting and wasting in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, minimum dietary diversity of children aged 6 to 23 months (30.8%) and anaemia in women.
World Health Organization (1 March 2024), published 2024
Definitions of stunting and wasting, the link between undernutrition and nearly half of deaths of children under five, effects of stunting on physical and cognitive potential, and the importance of the first 1,000 days.
World Bank (2 October 2024), published 2024
Costing of global nutrition targets: an extra US$13 billion a year for 2025 to 2034 to address undernutrition, a projected return of US$23 per dollar, 27 million cases of stunting averted, 6.2 million child deaths and 980,000 stillbirths prevented.
UNICEF and WHO, Global Breastfeeding Collective (2025), published 2025
Global exclusive breastfeeding rate of about 47% of infants under six months (8 points above 2020), the 60% target for 2030, and declining donor funding for breastfeeding programmes.
DO GOOD International (2026). Ending Child Stunting. Global Challenges. Updated October 15, 2026. https://www.dogood.world/challenges/child-stunting
For figures, please cite the original sources listed above.