TOURIST-RICH town Moalboal, Cebu, has the highest number of malnourished children and ranks first among twenty nutritionally depressed municipalities in Central Visayas in 2016, says National Nutrition Council (NNC).
Moalboal is world-famous for its dive spots; Pescador Island, just a few miles off the town’s shore, is listed as among the world’s best diving areas.
Moalboal had 11.82 percent of malnourished children, followed by Pilar, Bohol, with 11.50 percent.
Alcantara was ranked fourth at 11.38 percent, and Tuburan as sixth with 11.25 percent.
Regional Nutrition Program Coordinator Parolita Mission said health workers from every local government unit (LGU) in the region submitted their yearly report for their Operation Timbang (OpT) Plus.
“We computed it based on our yearly performance,” she said.
She said Moalboal Mayor Inocente Cabaron told her that the data is inaccurate and that their barangay health workers do not know how to get the data used as basis for the nutrition ranking.
“They trained their health staff to help improve the data,” she said.
This is the first time Moalboal ranked highest in the number of malnourished children.
She said common causes resulting in malnutrition is the unavailability of health facilities in the area and the caring practices in the family.
“The poor caring behavior in the family also shows implication for malnutrition,” she said.
A survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST) on children ages zero to five years old in Central Visayas showed that 22.8 percent were underweight.
“Dili pakaonon og tarong. Kon masakit, kay dili dayon dalhon sa health center (The children are not fed properly. And if they get sick, they are not brought to health center immediately),” she said.
The survey also showed that four out of 10 children are stunted or too short for their age or are too thin for their height.
A Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) for 2017 to 2022 will soon be launched to introduce specific and nutrition-sensitive programs to LGUs to address malnutrition in the region.
“Hopefully, mo-reduce na by 2022,” she said.