UNITED NATIONS — Undernutrition contributes to the deaths of 5.6 million children every year, and the world has fallen far short in efforts to reduce hunger by half before 2015, the U.N. Children's Fund said Tuesday.

The finding was the latest evidence that the United Nations will not meet the Millennium Development Goals, a series set out in 2000 to spur development and reduce poverty and hunger worldwide.

In its report, UNICEF said one of every four children under 5, including 146 million kids in the developing world, is underweight.

"At our current pace, we will not meet the promise of the Millennium Development Goals," UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said.

The most troublesome area in the world is South Asia, where 46 percent of children are underweight. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan account for half of the world's underweight kids, even though they have only 30 percent of the world's population under 5.

She also said that poor nutrition, particularly the lack of iodine, is diminishing the brainpower of children worldwide, sometimes by several IQ points.

By The Associated Press