Rescuing our children

By

SAVE the Children’s recent Cost of Hunger report on the Philippines shows a looming public health hazard — the continuing prevalence of malnutrition among our children 5 years and under. The report states that after a little more than a quarter-century of steady improvement, childhood undernutrition in the Philippines increased by more than 10 percent between 2013 and 2015, with under-five stunting increasing from 30.3 percent to 33.4 percent and underweight rates from 20 percent to 21.5 percent.

Such malnutrition has terribly worrying long-term impacts on our economic growth and education outcomes, as various studies have shown that undernourished children perform poorly in school due to impaired cognitive development and hence, are more likely to have lower income levels later in life. Overall, the country incurs very heavy costs today.

According to the Department of Education, 330,418 primary and secondary students repeated a grade for 2013 to 2014. Up to 15 percent of these students—48,597 — repeated because of stunting. More than 60 percent happened at the primary level. These stunting-induced repetitions force both families and government to shell out extra funding. By Save the Children’s calculations, these extra costs can reach up to R1.23 billion a year.

Malnutrition also leads to premature mortality — child deaths that would have been prevented with proper nutrition (such as through sustained breastfeeding early in life), adequate sanitation and ready access to public healthcare services. Around 838,000 children — who would have been part of the working-age population in 2013 — have already died because of malnutrition. And according to the report, the drop in the country’s productivity because of these needless deaths translates to around R160-billion loss.

Malnutrition also impairs our workforce today. The Cost of Hunger report shows that in 2013, up to 53 percent of our working-age population (15 to 64 years old) — some 32.6 million Filipinos — were undernourished and stunted before they reached their 5th birthday. On average, this adults undernourished as children completed only 5.74 years of schooling, compared to the 7.16 years of their well-nourished counterparts. Their lower educational attainment has limited the job opportunities open to them and in turn, led to smaller incomes. The report calculates that in 2013 this group incurred up to R166.5 billion in lost income — for reasons stemming back to their malnourishment as children.

All these — extra schooling expenses and productivity losses from premature child mortality and skillimpaired workforce — combined for a total of R328 billion economic losses from malnutrition. That is equivalent to around 2.83 percent of our GDP in 2013.

This figure does not even include health costs. Save The Children states that if they did so, the total impact of stunting on GDP could be an additional 1.6 percent — jacking up the costs of malnutrition to up R513.4 billion.

Malnutrition is not a new problem to the country. As early as 2002, this public health hazard convinced me and a group of business and civic leaders to launch the first scientifically formulated school-meal menu under the Kalusugan ng Bata, Karunungan ng Bayan (K and K) program.

With help from the DSWD and donations from the private sector, children from partner-schools were put under a 120-day feeding program for three years. Some 25,500 pupils in 50 public elementary schools in 7 provinces and 5 cities throughout the country benefited from the program. The dropout rate in their schools plunged by more than 50 percent. Academic performance and physical health dramatically rose. The K and K program ceased in the early 2010s.

Later, we launched the OMG (“Oh My Gulay!”) campaign, where elementary students were encouraged to eat properly by getting them involved in planting and maintaining in-campus vegetable and fruit gardens.

To be sure, “K and K” and “OMG” covered a limited number of children. We had hoped that government would eventually adopt good practices and come up with more comprehensive and sustained programs to combat the scourge of child malnutrition.

We are quite proud of our entry into a so-called “demographic window” as a boon for the country — that our relatively young population can spell immense dividends to our national prosperity. But when we fail to provide proper nourishment to our children, that opportunity can quickly become a demographic timebomb.

E-mail: angara.ed@gmail.com