ILOILO – Among the 42 towns and one component city in this province, the municipality of Pototan has the highest prevalence of stunting and wasting in children from zero to 59 months old, data from the Provincial Health Office (PHO) showed.
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.
Impaired growth has adverse functional consequences on the child. Some of those consequences include poor cognition and educational performance, according to Dr. Maria Socorro Colmenares Quiñon, provincial nutrition action officer of the PHO.
The 2018 Operation Timbang of PHO placed the prevalence of stunting among Pototan children at 27.01 percent, equivalent to 1,324 children, and 7.20 percent for wasting, equivalent to 353 children.
Colmenares Quiñon, however, expressed confidence that the problem could be addressed by parents, barangay officials and health workers.
Stunting and wasting start while the mother is pregnant, she said, this is why the PHO is campaigning for the adequate nutrition of the mother during pregnancy, and this must continue during the first 1,000 days of the baby.
Pregnant mothers must have iron and folic acid supplementation to meet their own nutritional needs as well as those of the developing fetus, stressed Colmenares Quiñon.
Deficiencies in iron and folic acid during pregnancy can potentially negatively impact the health of the mother, her pregnancy, as well as fetal development.
Iron and folic acid may be secured for free in rural health units, said Colmenares Quiñon.
She also reminded mothers to exclusively breastfeed their babies up to six months old.
Overall in the province, however, the nutrition status of children is improving, according to the PHO.
In 2018 the prevalence of undernutrition was at 3.27 percent (6,235 underweight children) – down from 2017’s 3.79 percent (9,500 underweight children).
Local government units were addressing their respective undernutrition problems, said Quiñon.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund defines “undernutrition” as the outcome of insufficient food intake (hunger) and repeated infectious diseases.
Undernutrition includes being underweight for one’s age, too short for one’s age (stunted), dangerously thin (wasted), and deficient in vitamins and minerals (micronutrient malnutrition). The term “malnutrition”, on the other hand, is a broad term commonly used as an alternative to undernutrition but technically it also refers to overnutrition – to the current epidemic of obesity and related diseases, such as diabetes, in both the industrialized and developing worlds.
Five municipalities with very low undernutrition prevalence were Pavia (0.05 percent), Igbaras (0.57 percent), Barotac Nuevo (0.59 percent), Miag-ao (0.66 percent), and Tigbauan (0.87 percent)./PN
