1 in 4 Children Malnourished, Global Report Says A new report says that despite advances against hunger around the world, chronic childhood malnutrition remains largely overlooked and almost a half billion children are at risk of permanent damage over the next 15 years. The report released Wednesday by Save the Children says that malnutrition is a largely hidden crisis that affects one in four children globally. The report says that 300 children die every hour of every day because of malnutrition. Global hunger has fallen markedly over the last two decades, but the 2011 Global Hunger Index found that six countries have higher rates of hunger today than two decades ago. Five of those countries are in Africa. The other is North Korea.