21 in every 100 Pinoy children underweight

In September 2000, members of the United Nations (UN) including the Philippines agreed to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing hunger and other forms of human deprivation worldwide.

Goal number one of the MDGs is to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty, wherein one of the targets is reducing in half the proportion of underweight children under 5 years old.

The Philippines’ target is to reduce the underweight prevalence of 27.3 percent in 1990 to 13.7 percent in 2015 in this age group.

The annual average reduction in underweight prevalence was 0.37 percentage points per year from 27.3 percent in 1990 to 20.6 percent in 2008.

According to the 2011 updating survey by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST), 20.2 percent of Filipino children 0 to 5 years old are underweight.

With this insignificant decrease in the prevalence of underweight children, the Philippines needs to double its effort to reach the target of bringing down to 13.6% the underweight prevalence three years from now.

The FNRI-DOST is helping to reduce the rate of underweight by developing complementary and snack foods like the Rice-Mongo Instant Baby Food and Rice –Mongo –Sesame Baby Food for children six months old and up. The Institute also developed the Rice –Mongo Curls to address this problem among children aged one year old and up.

A 30 gram sachet of Rice-Mongo Instant Baby Food provides 116 calories and 4.0 grams protein, while Rice-Mongo-Sesame Baby Food contains 137 calories and 4.3 grams protein.

On the other hand, a 30- gram pack of Rice-Mongo Curls contains 132 calories and 3.3 grams protein.

The FNRI-DOST recommends three sachets of these complementary foods to be given daily to older children.

In the Sulong Pinoy project of the FNRI-DOST, these complementary and snack foods were fed to 1,000 children 0 to 5 years old for 120 days in selected nutritionally- depressed towns of Leyte, Iloilo, Antique and Occidental Mindoro. The feeding resulted to increase in weight of children who participated in the feeding program.

These food technologies are being promoted to entrepreneurs for commercialization to make them readily available in the market.

The FNRI complementary and snack foods are more economical, compared with commercial brands.

The Philippines can be a step closer in achieving MDG number one, with the wider and faster roll-out of these complementary and snack foods nationwide.