Children’s Health Suffers From A Poor Environment

It is no joke to live in a place continually exposed to dirt and pollution. Big and crowded cities first come to mind as well as most developing countries. You see all sorts of environmental pollution here. Air, noise, water, you name it. Not only adults suffer from health issues arising from constant exposure but young kids too.

These kids are not safe even inside their homes. Many kids get very sick while some even die from it. They have lost their chance in life at a young age and that is a sad reality for those living in impoverished cities and countries all over the world. The statistics did not escape the attention of the United Nations.

Unhealthy environments—both inside and outside the home—cause the deaths of more than 1.7 million child under the age of 5 every year, according to two new reports released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.

Even in their own homes, many children in developing countries have neither clean air to breathe nor clean water to drink, the reports found.

“Almost half of the world’s population is still cooking or heating or lighting their households with very dirty fuels” such as coal or animal dung, Maria Neira, director of the WHO Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health told Inter Press Service (IPS).

Neira describes the smoke that children breathe in from these fuels as a “hidden and very pernicious” cause of ill health, leading to childhood illnesses, such as pneumonia and asthma, as