ILOILO City – Stunting is prevalent in Antique province. In fact, it has the highest prevalence in Western Visayas at 13.36 percent, data from the National Nutrition Council (NNC) showed.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines stunting as the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection and inadequate psychosocial stimulation.
Children are defined as stunted if their height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the WHO Child Growth Standards median.
Stunting in Region 6 in 2017 had a prevalence of 10.8 percent, down from 11.46 percent in 2016 and 2015’s 13 percent, according to regional nutrition program coordinator Nona Tad-y.
Poverty deprived stunted children of nutritious food necessary for growth, she said.
The 10.8 percent prevalence was equivalent to 77,481 stunted children less than five years old, and 27,545 severely stunted. These NNC figures were based on 1.2 million preschoolers in Region 6 weighed in 2017.
Meanwhile, the province of Negros Occidental had the highest wasting prevalence at 4.07 percent, according to Tad-y.
Wasting or thinness indicates, in most cases, a recent and severe process of weight loss, which is often associated with acute starvation and/or severe disease, stated WHO.
Impaired growth has adverse functional consequences on the child, it added. Some of those consequences include poor cognition and educational performance.
Next to Antique with a high stunting prevalence was Negros Occidental (11.37 percent), followed by Iloilo (10.56 percent), Capiz (10.40 percent), Aklan (9.79 percent), and Guimaras (7.13 percent).
Among cities in Western Visayas, Bacolod had the highest prevalence of stunting at 21.08 percent followed by Talisay City (17.27 percent) and Victorias City (12.76 percent).
The three municipalities with high stunting prevalence were Don Salvador Benedicto in Negros Occidental (31.23 percent), Lemery, Iloilo (21.24 percent) and Libertad, Antique (18.55 percent).
Aside from poverty, another factor that contributed to stunting and wasting was poor nutrition education, said Tad-y.
Parents may not know they were serving to their children food that did not have nutritional value, she explained.
In the area of wasting, the regional prevalence in 2017 was 3.44 percent, slightly down from 2016’s 3.73 and 2015’s 4.9 percent.
Negros Occidental topped in the wasting prevalence rate (4.07 percent), followed by Antique (3.63 percent), Iloilo (3.08 percent), Aklan (2.91 percent), Capiz (2.52 percent), and Guimaras (1.87 percent).
Among municipalities, the three with the most number of wasting cases were Moises Padilla in Negros Occidental (8.41 percent), Don Salvador Benedicto also Negros Occidental (6.41 percent), and Madalag, Capiz (5.52 percent).
“Kulang sa ihibalo sa nutrition. Even ang choice sang pagkaon, indi sila kabalo nga mas masustansya gali ini nga pagkaon kon ikumparar sa ina nga pagkaon,” said Tad-y./PN
