Nigeria: Prevalence of underweight, weight for age (% of children under 5)

Key figures

How it compares

See how every economy compares in the full ranking.

Closest to Nigeria in the 2021 ranking

• Burkina Faso — 2nd of 4: 16.9%
• Philippines — 3rd of 4: 16.7%
• Egypt, Arab Rep. — 4th of 4: 3.7%

What this measures

Prevalence of underweight children is the percentage of children under age 5 whose weight for age is more than two standard deviations below the median for the international reference population ages 0-59 months. The data are based on the WHO's 2006 Child Growth Standards.

Limitations: Survey estimates come with levels of uncertainty due to both sampling error and non-sampling error (e.g., measurement technical error, recording error etc.,). None of the two sources of errors have been fully taken into account for deriving estimates neither at country nor at regional or worldwide levels.

Regional and income-group figures are computed by the World Bank as a linear mixed-effect model estimates.

All 10 values

Prevalence of underweight, weight for age (% of children under 5) in nearby economies

• Burkina Faso — 16.9% (2021)
• Burundi — 28.3% (2024)
• Chad — 18.2% (2022)
• Ghana — 12% (2022)
• Kenya — 9.8% (2022)
• Malawi — 12.8% (2020)
• Mali — 15% (2024)
• Mauritania — 22.4% (2022)
• Niger — 34.6% (2022)

More health data for Nigeria

• Population ages 00-04, female (% of female population) — 14.4% (2025)
• Population ages 00-04, male (% of male population) — 14.42% (2025)
• Population ages 0-14, female — 47.42 million (2025)
• Population ages 0-14, female (% of female population) — 40.41% (2025)
• Population ages 0-14, male — 48.82 million (2025)
• Population ages 0-14, male (% of male population) — 40.62% (2025)
• Population ages 0-14, total — 96.25 million (2025)
• Population ages 0-14 (% of total population) — 40.52% (2025)
• Population ages 05-09, female (% of female population) — 13.33% (2025)

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Questions people ask

What is Nigeria's prevalence of underweight, weight for age (% of children under 5)?

24.4% in 2021, according to the World Bank (World Development Indicators).

How has it changed since 1990?

It is down 8.7 percentage points from 33.1% in 1990. The highest value was 35.1% in 1993 and the lowest 18.4% in 2020.

Where does this data come from?

The World Bank's World Development Indicators, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: UNICEF, WHO, World Bank: Joint child Malnutrition Estimates (JME). Aggregation is based on UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank harmonized dataset (adjusted, comparable data) and methodology., UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), note: Aggregation is based on UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank harmonized dataset (a….

Source

World Bank, World Development Indicators, indicator SH.STA.MALN.ZS, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: UNICEF, WHO, World Bank: Joint child Malnutrition Estimates (JME). Aggregation is based on UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank harmonized dataset (adjusted, comparable data) and methodology., UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), note: Aggregation is based on UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank harmonized dataset (a… Figures are fetched from the World Bank API and refreshed monthly; see the series on data.worldbank.org. The full definition and method are in the World Bank's metadata glossary. Comparisons use the same World Bank release.

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