ACCORDING to the World Bank, the Philippines has one of the worst cases of child stunting in the world, ranking fifth with the highest stunting prevalence among countries in the East Asia and Pacific Region, and is among the 10 worst countries in the world .
The World Health Organization (WHO) clarifies that stunting is a growth and development impairment of children resulting from poor nutrition, repeated infection and inadequate psychosocial stimulation. When this happens specifically during the first 1,000 days from birth to two years of age, it can lead to adverse consequences that will limit a child’s ability to reach his full mental, physical and economic potential.
We should be worried. Malnutrition is a persistent societal problem that can imperil children’s ability to achieve a better quality of life. If the problem is not addressed in an urgent and decisive manner, we will be placing our country’s future in the hands of stunted children becoming adults whose capacity to be productive, competitive and creative are limited, thus affecting national development and progress.
Malnutrition is a major threat to the nation’s future. Thus addressing malnutrition and child stunting requires a strong focus on governance, involving coordinated actions by many actors across sectors and across levels of government, according to the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement. There must be a whole-of-society approach in fighting malnutrition and child stunting and its adverse effects. We must muster the collective strength of the private sector to mobilize and help the government achieve the country’s nutrition objectives. The recent infusion of resources from the World Bank is expected to boost the government’s Philippine Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Project (PMNP) with timely and critical support.
The PMNP underscores the importance of holistic nutrition-sensitive programs that address key underlying determinants of nutrition. This includes food security, access to services, and environment, as well as nutrition-specific interventions or those that deal with the immediate causes of maternal and child malnutrition such as micronutrient deficiency, underweight, stunting, wasting and obesity.
Addressing child stunting / malnutrition must be a priority national agenda, and concrete actions from the national government should be cascaded at the community level.
