FROM FIRST 1,000 DAYS TO A-1 K-12 FEEDERS

The author is Teacher

SIRUS CABEL SANTOS

President Rodrigo Duterte has signed the so-called “First 1,000 Days” Law, a measure that seeks to provide health and nutrition services to children during their early days of development.

Signed by the President on Nov. 29, Republic Act 11148, or the “Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng Mag-Nanay Act,” shall provide “evidence-based nutrition interventions...as well as nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive mechanisms, strategies, programs and approaches… to eradicate malnutrition and hunger.”

The law also seeks to strengthen and define the roles of the Department of Health, the National Nutrition Council, and other government agencies tasked to implement nutrition programs in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life.

Under the law, the DOH, NNC, Department of Agriculture, in coordination with relevant government agencies, shall develop a comprehensive and sustainable strategy for the first 1,000 days of life to address the health, nutrition, and developmental problems affecting infants, young children, adolescent females, and pregnant and lactating women.

The goal is that the entire nation:the creation and maintenance of a chealthy mother will produce a better citizen capable of profiting to the optimum degree from the educational instruction offered. Malnourished children are “more likely to be apathetic,irritable,b, and lack a long attention span.

Early morning nutrition for children who come to school with little or no breakfast is increasing, as in the custom of offering mid-morning snacks, especially for children in the primary grades. Experimental studies have indicated the positive value of good nutrition on learning ability and high pupil moral.

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III at Diosdado Macapagal National High School, Floridablanca