“Proper nutrition is important for health and proper development of an individual”
THIS month the country is observing the 51st Nutrition Month, pursuant to Presidential Decree 491 issued by President Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1974 which designated July as Nutrition Month with the goal of creating greater awareness on the importance of nutrition.
The law also created the National Nutrition Council with the primary function of formulating an integrated national program on nutrition.
Enshrined in our Constitution is the provision that the State shall protect and promote the right to health of the people and instill health consciousness among them.
American nutritional biochemist Dr. T. Colin Campbell once said “Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence. All parts are interconnected.”
Proper nutrition is important for health and proper development of an individual. It is promotes stronger immune system, healthier citizens and longer life span. Healthier individuals are more productive and contribute more to the country’s social and economic development. Malnutrition on the other hand, adversely affects the mental and physical development of children and is a threat to human health.
In 2024, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. called for a stronger drive against malnutrition and address its triple burden—undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency and overnutrition.
The Philippine Development Plan (PDP) aims to strengthen the school-based feeding program to address malnutrition. According to the PDP, by promoting a regular diet of sufficient quantities and varieties of nutrient-dense food among children, malnutrition-related cognitive impairments will be reduced.
The National Nutrition Council in 2023 launched the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) 2023-2028. It underscores the importance of eradicating malnutrition and serves as the blueprint in the effort to correct the nutrition situation in the country. It also supports the eight-point socio-economic agenda of the government.
The PPAN 2023–2028 supports the achievement of the eight-point socioeconomic agenda of the Marcos Administration, the Universal Health Care, the Philippine Development Plan 2023–2028, and the long-term vision of Ambisyon Natin 2040.
According to the FNRI e-UPDATES dated December 2024 at https://www.fnri.dost.gov.ph/, the 2023 National Nutrition Survey revealed that stunting continues to affect 2 in every 10 (23.6%) children under five years old while wasting remains a concern at 5.6%. Two in every 10 (15.1%) children are underweight. Two in every 10 (19.1%) pregnant women are nutritionally at risk of delivering low-birth-weight infants, while 5 in every 10 (51.1%) lactating women are overweight or obese.
The government has several programs to stamp out malnutrition to include school-based feeding program. In his state of the nation address last year, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. said: “One survey confirmed that our expanded School-Based Feeding Program has had a significant impact on the physical and mental well-being of more than half of the learner-beneficiaries.”
He added that one component of the strategies to address malnutrition shall be the program for the “First One Thousand Days,” or the first two years of a child’s life.
There are private entities actively participating in promoting good nutrition with San Miguel Corporation being one of these.
Nutrition is among the advocacies of SMC. “Good nutrition starts before birth, and we want to make sure mothers and children in underprivileged communities receive sustained support — not just one-time assistance,” SMC Chairman and CEO Ramon S. Ang said.
Its Happy si Mommy, Malusog si Baby program undertaken in collaboration with San Miguel Foods, Inc. and San Miguel Foundation has reached over 1,000 beneficiaries in 24 barangays throughout the country. This initiative is aligned with the government program “First One Thousand Days” as it supports mothers and infants during the first 1,000 days of life which is a critical period for early development and long-term health.
The program was launched in 2022 in nine barangays with 254 mother-and-child pairs. It has expanded to cover more than 400 families in Luzon, over 300 in the Visayas, and over 250 in Mindanao.
Eighty-nine percent of children enrolled in the program have reached normal height and weight, underweight cases have dropped to 2%, and only 9% remain classified as malnourished.
The program also provides pre-natal checkups, ultrasounds, maternal health education, and Mingo Meals, a fortified food made of rice, mung beans and moringa, developed by the Food and Nutrition Institute (FNRI) of DOST.
Meanwhile, San Miguel Foods, Inc. boosted the government’s feeding program by partnering with FNRI to develop a fortified premix to standardize the e-Nutribun products and ensure that beneficiary children get the intended micronutrients such as iron, vitamin A, vitamin D and folic acid. E-nutribuns are distributed to beneficiaries of the feeding programs of government agencies such as the Department of Education School-based feeding program, Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Supplementary feeding programs, and the National Nutrition Council’s Tutok Kainan Supplementation Program.
(The author is publisher, president/chief executive officer of Media Touchstone Ventures, Inc. and president/executive director of the Million Trees Foundation Inc., a non-government outfit advocating tree-planting and environmental protection.)
