Seaweed candy. Yum.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Candy is dandy for North Korean children trying to grow tall, strong and smart in a country battling chronic food shortages.

North Korea has developed a candy it claims is good for children and will help them increase their height, weight and IQ, a pro-North Korea newspaper published in Japan said on Friday..

"Unlike medications that help growth by clinical methods or hormonal effects, the growth nutritional candy has no negative side effects," the Choson Sinbo said, based on an interview with the head of a nutritional research center in the North.

Unlike sugar-packed and chocolate-covered sweets, the North is hoping that children in the reclusive state will enjoy munching on their nutritional candy made of seaweed, beans, carrots and sesame seeds, the newspaper said.

The candy report comes on the same day a top U.N. agency official said the food shortage crisis in North Korea is growing more severe by the day and the communist state is dispensing "starvation rations" to its population.