NEGROS Oriental Nutrition Council has recorded a downward trend in malnutrition prevalence rate in the province, as well as in Dumaguete City amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Provincial Nutrition Action Officer Dr. Liland Estacion said the data showed a slight decrease of .2 percent from 5.2 percent to 5.0 in underweight, for stunted from 12.9 to 11 percent, and wasted and overweight from 3.8 to 3.5 percent in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Dr. Estacion, who is also the incident commander of the provincial inter-agency task force on emerging infectious diseases (PIATF-EID), attributed the lowering of malnutrition rate to community quarantine conditions, and the children and mothers staying at home have the time to prepare and eat nutritious food.
“This is one of the positive impacts of the quarantine classifications, but I’m not saying that it is good that we have this pandemic,” Estacion said.
On July 22, Dumaguete City Nutrition Action Officer Lourdes Taburaza said despite the pandemic, all forms of malnutrition went down from 1.9 percent in 2020 to 1.7 percent this year.
Taburaza reported that stunted children records from 3.3 to 2.3 percent; severely wasted from 1.2 percent to .7 percent; and obesity and overweight went down from 3.2 to 2.4 percent.
Taburaza credited the decrease of the city’s malnutrition rates to some interventions placed, which include the Dumaguete City Government’s budget support of P3 million for supplementary feeding for Day Care children.
Identified children aged six months to two years with stunted or short for age have been provided with milk and nutritious food.
Despite the pandemic, assigned Barangay Nutrition Scholars in the barangays or puroks were able to deliver the rations house to house.
“Last year, we also started our ‘Tutok Kaininan’ program and sustained it this year for pregnant women to achieve or improve the nutrition figures in the city,” said Taburaza.
As the province joins the country in the celebration of Nutrition Month this July, the National Nutrition Council (NNC) has stressed that good health and nutrition in the first 1000 days of life of the children is very important.
Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Focal Person Kristal Katrina Bacay of NNC challenged local nutrition committees to continue its efforts for gradual decrease in malnutrition rate.
Bacay said while the government is battling the pandemic, it is also important to focus efforts on the interventions for the first 1,000 days of life of the children from the womb’s mother until their childhood to prevent stunting.
“Nutrition has some bearing to school performance, economic productivity and development,” said Bacay. (PIA)