COMMENT | Stunting in Malaysia is a national emergency hiding in plain sight.

When children’s growth is permanently impaired by malnutrition, it isn’t just their bodies that suffer; their cognitive development, learning capacity, and future livelihoods are damaged for life.

In 2000, 20 percent of our children under five years of age were “stunted”, and this has increased to 24 percent.

In fact, developing countries that enjoy a similar economic growth rate as Malaysia experience a stunted growth rate of less than 10 percent.

A country that prides itself on development cannot normalise children growing up smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable simply because the system failed them before they could even speak.

What makes this...