An official from the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare has issued a warning about the “malnutrition” of the Iranian people, presenting new statistics that suggest a “humanitarian disaster” is unfolding in the country.
Hadi Mousavi Nik, the Director General of Social Welfare Studies at the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, said that 57 percent of the Iranian population suffers from malnutrition and does not receive the required 2,100 calories per day.
The official’s remarks were published on news website 90eghtesadi on July 10.
He added that this number of calories is the minimum daily requirement for humans, which the World Bank considers for refugees in refugee camps.
Mousavi Nik also stated that among the malnourished population in Iran, 14.5 million children, including 10 million children under the age of 12, are affected.
This figure presented by the government official is significantly higher than previous statistics.
In November 2022, Iranian media reported that according to statistics from the Ministry of Health, 800,000 Iranian children were suffering from malnutrition, equivalent to 15 percent of the country’s children.
At that time, the official IRNA news agency wrote that these Iranian children “are generally facing a shortage of energy and protein, as well as a lack of micronutrients.”
Meanwhile, Mohammad Taghi Hosseini Tabatabai, the scientific secretary of the 18th Emergency and Common Diseases of Pediatric Medicine conference, also announced that based on studies, four provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Hormozgan, Ilam, and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad have high rates of short stature, underweight, and malnutrition.
In addition to the malnutrition of children, various reports in recent years have shown a significant increase in the price of protein foods like red meat in Iran, causing many impoverished and even middle-class families to reduce their consumption of protein.
Two months ago, the state-run Etemad newspaper published a field report on the state of buying and selling poultry in Iran, which showed that some citizens were unable to buy this type of white meat.
Reporters for the newspaper encountered various issues at poultry and meat stores in several locations in Tehran, from bartering to working for a few pieces of chicken.
Warning from the Parliamentary Research Center about the spread of poverty
In its latest report, the Parliamentary Research Center has warned that if the experience of the 2010s is repeated in the Seventh Development Plan, “redistributive policies” will not lead anywhere, and the poverty rate will experience an increasing trend.
This center has announced in its report: “To achieve high growth and improve productivity, policymakers must abandon price control policies to control inflation in order to fundamentally resolve the problem of inflation.”
This research institution has recommended to the regime’s officials that in the current situation, the country needs “to increase the production of new foreign exchange resources and strategic investment.”
The Parliamentary Research Center has also called for the “reform of the banking network with the aim of financing productive investments” and has written: “The health of the banking network has a direct relationship with its ability to provide facilities and its stability.”
This is happening while in recent years, according to numerous government and judicial reports, corruption in Iran’s banking system has increased, and domestic production has given way to imports, especially from China.
