Uva Province has the highest rate of malnutrition among children under the age of five in Sri Lanka, a specialist nutritionist said this week, warning that the region is now contending with a “dual burden” in which both undernutrition and unhealthy weight gain are rising in tandem, Ada Derana reported.
The specialist said the elevated undernutrition rate in Uva reflects long-standing patterns of household food insecurity, lower per-capita incomes and gaps in early-childhood nutrition support compared with the Western and Central provinces. At the same time, an increasing share of children are showing overnutrition — meaning excess caloric intake, often from energy-dense low-nutrient processed foods — which raises lifetime risk of metabolic disease, diabetes and cardiovascular conditions.
The dual-burden framing has become a recurring theme in Sri Lanka’s public-health discourse, particularly as Cyclone Ditwah’s lingering economic effects, rising fuel and food prices and the upcoming El Niño-driven Yala-season pressures compound household budget stress. The specialist said the Uva pattern was being driven both by income limitations and by an increasing reliance on cheap, calorie-rich snacks and packaged foods over fresh vegetables, fruit and animal protein.
The Health Ministry has emphasised in recent guidance the importance of breastfeeding, complementary feeding and school-meal nutrition standards. The Department of Nutrition has previously rolled out Uva-specific interventions, but the latest assessment suggests the gap with other provinces has not narrowed in line with national-level improvements.
The specialist urged the government to integrate dual-burden response into provincial health-services planning and to expand school-based nutrition education and growth monitoring in Uva districts.
Sources: Ada Derana — Uva Province has Sri Lanka’s highest child malnutrition rate.
