In Central Visayas, the province of Cebu has the second highest number of malnourished pre-school children aged zero to 71 months old, a National Nutrition Council (NNC-7) report said.
According to a 2017 assessment of NNC-7, among the four provinces of Central Visayas, Negros Oriental had the highest number of malnutrition cases at 7.23 percent followed by Cebu at 7.16 percent which is higher than the 6.21% recorded a year before in 2016.
The towns of Aloguinsan, Dumanjug and Medellin had the highest rate of stunted growth in Cebu; while Samboan, Aloguinsan and Dumanjug also led the highest rate of underweight incidents among children in Cebu.
Malnutrition comes in the form of being underweight, stunted growth, wasting or extreme thinness and even obesity, said NNC-7 Information Officer Norre Jean Delos Santos.
Malnutrition in Negros Oriental was also significantly higher in 2017 than the 5.84 percent recorded in 2016.
The provinces of Bohol and Siquijor maintained a drop in the number of incidents.
Bohol’s malnutrition data showed a slight drop from 3.97% in 2016 to 3.92% in 2017; while Siquijor recorded 3.56% in 2017 from 4.56 % in 2016.
Delos Santos urged households to practice home or backyard farming so that families can have a wide access to nutritious food which is likely the best way to fight malnutrition.
Department of Agriculture (DA-7) Information Officer Melquiades Ibarra, for his part, said that DA-7 was willing to provide seedlings for households that wanted to have their own backyard garden.
Ibarra said that being in an urbanized area is not an excuse not to plant because there are ways to grow vegetables without needing much space.
“There is dish gardening and vertical (gardening) if your problem is space. That should not be an excuse,” Ibarra said.