Shortage of vitamins has stunted the intelligence of many developing nations, even those with enough food, says a United Nations report.
Spiking common food with nutrients is the only way to counter this problem, says the report released in New York on Wednesday by UNICEF and The Micronutrient Initiative.
Apart from food fortification, or adding essential vitamins and minerals to regularly consumed foods, it also recommends 'reaching out to children and women of childbearing age with vitamin and mineral supplements in the form of low-cost tables, capsules and syrups'.
According to the report, iron deficiency impairs intellectual development in young children and is lowering national IQs, while Vitamin A deficiency compromises the immune systems of approximately 40% of children under five in the developing world, leading to the death of 1 million youngsters each year. Iodine deficiency in pregnancy is causing as many as 20 million babies a year to be born mentally impaired.
"So ubiquitous is vitamin and mineral deficiency that it debilitates in some significant degree the energies, intellects, and economic prospects of nations," it says.
"Resources and technology to bring vitamin and mineral deficiencies under control do exist," said Venkatesh Mannar, president of The Micronutrient Initiative. "What we need is the will, the effort and the action to fix this problem."