Marshalls launches big child health intervention

Majuro: The Marshall Islands is rolling out a major intervention in an attempt to help parents improve the health of their young children.

A high-rate of malnutrition and growth stunting among children has been a concern for many years

A survey jointly conducted by UNICEF and the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health and Human Services in 2017 documented serious malnutrition and growth stunting in over 30 perc ent of children from early months after birth to five years of age.

But the malnutrition problem, particularly in the urban centers, has been documented since the late 1980s, in part due to Marshallese moving away from eating local foods and following customary norms to adopting western imported foods for their diet.