While overweight and obesity was dramatically spreading, malnutrition still remained a serious problem.
War and violence have compounded the spread of malnutrition by making it nearly impossible for Yemen's health care system to sustain itself.
A three-year rise of $5 billion, though tiny compared with next year's proposed $48 billion increase in defense spending, can do much good fighting AIDS and other infectious diseases, relieving malnutrition, spreading computer literacy and Internet access and helping third-world businesses market their goods in the developed world.
"In the past few weeks, serious malnutrition has spread from the camps to the town population," Mr. Caccia said, quoting from the report.
Nutritional screening As Timor-Leste moves into its fourth month of emergency, humanitarian aid workers fear that malnutrition could spread, affecting even more children.
© UNICEF Video UNICEF and its partners are working to prevent the spread of disease and malnutrition amongst children in the wake of Benin's recent floods.
In the aftermath of the typhoon, UNICEF immediately deployed experts and resources to prevent the spread of disease and malnutrition and to help children and their families to cope with their losses.
Malnutrition is spreading through rural areas of the Central American "drought corridor," where rains faltered during the May to August planting and harvesting seasons.
With foreign exchange short, importers are struggling to get food to the towns, where shops are bare and malnutrition is spreading.
In Darfur, one of the world's most complex and inaccessible territories, malnutrition is spreading to parts of the population largely unaffected until recently, and UNICEF is working to reach 1.5 million children caught in renewed conflict there.
