ILOILO City – Western Visayas needs more nutritionists to address stunting and wasting among the region’s children.
Director Ro-an Bacal of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Region 6 said the 2019 nutritionist-population ratio in the region is 1:253,438, or 10-fold to the standard 1:20,000 ratio.
“This will be the priority concern of the RDC (Regional Development Council) in the coming months and private sector collaboration will be mobilized for this concern,” said Bacal during her presentation on the hunger incidence and unemployment status in Region 6 during the recent 54th Cabinet Assistance Staff virtual meeting presided by Secretary Karlo Alexei Nograles.
The World Health Organization defines stunting as the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection and inadequate psychosocial stimulation.
On the other hand, wasting or thinness indicates – in most cases a recent and severe process of weight loss – is often associated with acute starvation and/or severe disease.
Bacal discussed the impact of hunger on children in the region during the meeting.
Citing the report of the National Nutrition Council, she said that in 2019 six percent or 42,213 children below five years old in Region 6 were stunted (below standards for height-for-age), and two percent or 13,202 of these children were severely stunted.
Among schoolchildren over five years old, 21 percent (224,320) were stunted and seven percent (72,613) were severely stunted.
Antique had the highest incidence of stunting among children below five at 11.97 percent while Negros Occidental recorded the highest incidence of stunting among children over five at 35.29 percent.
Moreover, two percent (13,445) of children below five years old were wasted (below standards for weight-for-age) and one percent (4,744) were severely wasted.
Among schoolchildren, 11 percent were wasted and four percent were severely wasted.
Capiz recorded the highest prevalence of wasting at 22.79 percent.
Bacal shared the recommendations to combat the malnutrition in the region based on the Regional Plan of Action for Nutrition.
This covers the provision of technical and logistics support, a food production program to augment the family food supply, establishing functional nutrition committees in local government units, integration of nutrition in the K-12 curriculum, ensure compliance to the expanded breastfeeding program, research, and continuation of the supplementary feeding program, among others.
On the other hand, Bacal also shared the 2018 statistics in Region 6 on the annual per capita food threshold for a family of five which was estimated at P16,987.
She said the proportion of families earning below this threshold over the total number of families gives the subsistence incidence or the food poor families.
The data also showed a declining incidence 2.7 percent compared to 5.4 percent in 2015 and 4.2 percent of food poor population for 2018 vis-à-vis the 8.1 percent in 2015.
Aside from Bacal, other NEDA regional directors also presented their respective hunger incidence and unemployment status. They were Efren Carreon and Bonifacio Uy of Eastern Visayas, also the vice-chairpersons of the Regional Development Council.
The invitation was an offshoot of the Social Weather Station study, which point to the Visayas area as the most problematic when it comes to hunger and unemployment./PN
