To ensure that the health and nutrition needs of its 21,000 kindergarten and Grade 1 pupils in public schools are met, the Marikina City government revived the Nutribun program.
“Our bread is made of malunggay, squash, eggs and flour. It comes with milk. The nutritional content of these ingredients are appropriate for growing children,” Marikina City Mayor Marcelino Teodoro said during the launch of the program on Tuesday.
After 120 days, Teodoro said the children will be weighed and their health condition and performance in school will be assessed.
The fund for the Nutribun program, he said, will come from the Special Nutrition Fund of the city government.
“We want all children in the city to be healthy and happy by providing them proper nutrition. That’s why I came up with (the idea) reviving the Nutribun program for 21,000 Kinder and Grade 1 public school children,” Teodoro said.
He said they have monitored cases of under-nutrition among public school students, prompting the need for a timely intervention, which is the Nutribun.
“We found out that some children do not have anything to eat so they cannot eat anything nutritious,” Teodoro said. “Malnutrition affects the children’s performance in school, so this must be addressed.”
Between 1968 and 1970, Nutribun, the bread envisioned as a way to fight malnutrition, was developed by a team of nutritionists and agrarian experts at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The bread is fortified with nutrients and was designed around a “base” product that could be modified using any number of locally available substances.