Overcoming Malnutrition in the Philippines: A Call to Action
Health issues revolving around the world is quite enormous every year. In the Philippines, 95 children dies from malnutrition and 27 out of 1,000 Filipino children do not get past their fifth birthday. In malnutrition in the Philippines essay this topic will be considered.
It is also notable that Filipino children are stunted, or their height doesn’t meet the required height for their age. A child that is stunted after 2 years of age can be permanent, irreversible and even fatal. Malnutrition in the Philippines is caused by host interrelated factors such as health, physical, social and economic. Reports indicated that Filipinos are getting the exact amount of food supply each day, yet many Filipinos continue to go hungry and malnourished because of inadequate nutrients intake. In 2015, the national prevalence rate of under-five overweight is 3.9%, which has slightly decreased from 5% in 2013. While for the under-five stunting is 33.4%, which is greater than the developing country average of 25%. There are four broad sub-forms of under-nutrition. These are:
- Wasting, wherein your weight is too low for your height and being severely wasted can lead to death but treatment is possible;
- Stunting, wherein your height doesn’t meet the requirements for your age, and it is the result of chronic or recurrent under-nutrition usually associated with poor socio-economic conditions;
- Underweight, children with low-weight-for-age, and a child who is underweight may be stunted, wasted, or both;
- Deficiencies in vitamins – often referred to as micronutrients.
Lack of micronutrients can be a major threat worldwide especially to pregnant women and children. It is quite obvious that this 2019 Novel Coranavirus Pandemic has worsened the plight of malnourished Filipino children. According to Dr. Amado Parawan, Health and Nutrition Advisor of Save the children Philippines, the 2019 pandemic and the Enhanced Community Quarantine did not only posed a situation that possessed challenges to the health workers and nutrition programs for severely malnourished children. Worse, it has resulted to the inability of families to meet their basic food requirements due to income losses. The Department of Health UN children’s agency (UNICEF) come together to save the lives of children who’s suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Nutrition supply as ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF), are finally being delivered to the provinces to treat more or less 50,000 children that are severely malnourished. Provinces in the Philippines tend to have the highest rate of malnutrition in the country, especially in some parts of Mindanao. According to the National Nutrition Survey, the Bangsamoro region has the highest prevalence rate of stunting in the Philippines at 45.2%, which only means that an estimation of 230,000 children, or at least 1 in every 2 children under 5 are stunted and deprived of achieving their full potential in life. The Department of Budget has allocated a funding of ₱1.97 billion for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and to address the acute malnutrition in the ARMM, ₱370 million is allotted for the supplemental feeding project that targets 200,000 malnourished children wherein 100,000 are from Maguindanao, 50,000 from Basilan, and 50,000 from Lanao Del Sur.
In conclusion, these health issues could be present not mainly on adults, but also, on young ones. One of the common health problems that most of the people experience is malnutrition. Malnutrition is commonly known as “poor nutrition” and can refer to: under – nutrition which means, you’re not getting the exact or the enough amount of nutrients, and over – nutrition which means you are getting more nutrients than needed. Malnutrition is a serious condition that will occur when a person’s diet doesn’t contain the right amount of nutrients needed. One main cause of malnutrition in a developing country is lack of food.
