Nutrition in the new normal

JULY is the Philippines' national nutrition month, and it aims to raise greater awareness among Filipinos about malnutrition prevention and the importance of healthy eating habits. This celebration began 48 years ago after the creation of the National Nutrition Council (NNC) through the issuance of Presidential Decree 491 in June 1974. The NNC was given the responsibility of supervising, coordinating and evaluating the country's nutrition program for all government and private agencies. It also spearheads the nationwide nutrition campaign with annual themes that promote healthy diets that are essential for human growth and development. This year's theme is "New normal na nutrisyon, sama-samang gawan ng solusyon!" (New normal nutrition, together we find solutions!). This theme, according to the NNC, "calls for strengthened nutrition interventions and solidarity toward nutrition improvement as the country shifts toward living with the Covid-19 virus." Prior to the pandemic, what was the nutritional status in the country, especially among children younger than 5 years old?

Let us draw from the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) pre-pandemic National Nutrition Survey (NNS) results from 1989 to 2019 (the June 2021 World Bank (WB) comprehensive report noted that in the past three decades, there is almost no improvement in the prevalence of undernutrition in the Philippines). The 2019 FNRI NNS showed that 1 in 3 children (29 percent) below 5 years old were stunted, or "small in size for their age." Nineteen percent were underweight or below the expected weight for their age, while 6 percent of children under 5 years of age were identified as "wasted," or underweight for their height. The Philippines "ranked fifth among countries in the East Asia and Pacific region with the highest prevalence of stunting and is among the 10 countries globally with the highest number of stunted children," indicating that stunting is a major public health issue in our country.