Most of the malnourished children live in Africa. While many have enough food to eat, they do not get sufficient minerals and vitamins, says the report, titled "A Life Free from Hunger".
The report maintains that malnourishment is responsible for the deaths of 2.6million children each year, and says the condition leaves children more susceptible to infections and diarrhoea.
Mixael de Kock , chairman of the Johannesburg Press Club, which hosted the event, said South Africa had had success fighting malnutrition by fortifying flour and maize meal with essential minerals. In 2003, the Department of Health made the fortification of all maize and wheat flour mandatory.
But Dr Geoff Douglas, a British internal medicine specialist visiting South Africa, said many "inorganic vitamins" in local flours were not absorbed by the body.
Douglas said studies showed man-made vitamins counteracted each other or were destroyed in cooking. Vitamins needed to be supplied in "food-state form".
Douglas, who started a charity dealing with "hidden hunger", said much of the world's food lacked adequate nutrition because of modern-day farming practices and the refining of flours.
"Hidden hunger describes a state in which a person has a full stomach but has not had enough vitamins and minerals."
Johannesburg industrial chemist Basil Kransdorff has been praised for technology he uses in his porridge, e'Pap. It is regarded as the "only South African intervention effectively fighting malnutrition".
e'Pap has reached more than 15 countries in Africa, and more than 120million portions of the porridge have been fed to malnourished people in the past 12 years.
Kransdorff says his technology uses "nutrients with high absorption properties so added minerals are better absorbed by the body".
Kransdorff recently visited the US and discussed his food technology with the White House think tank and scientists who advise US President Barack Obama. He revealed plans to use e'Pap technology to improve the nutritional quality of the breast milk of women in rural India.
Breast-feeding was also advocated at the Save the Children Johannesburg launch as a way to fight malnutrition. But Kransdorff warned that if a mother was malnourished, her breast milk would be low in nutrients. His project in India aims to improve nutrition for breast-feeding mothers.
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi last year committed his department to encouraging breast feeding only in the first six months of a child's life.
Source: The Times
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