A colorful life with food

Children need food. It’s as simple as that. Any young boy or girl requires proper nutrition and sustenance in order for him or her to grow up healthy and strong. The importance of food surpasses the basic idea that it goes in your mouth, gives you energy and (hopefully) tastes good. Food is crucial to our physical development as well as specific brain functions, therefore it is a variable that cannot really be overlooked when it comes to growing children.

In the Philippines, the health of some four million children under the age of 10 is threatened by malnutrition, making them prone to anemia, blindness, skin conditions and other diseases, as well as inhibited cognitive development. For many families, the condition may even be aggravated by poverty that limits their access to nutritious food.

Poverty is a big deal. It hits so many people, regardless of age and gender and it is problematic in the sense that it denies people the most basic of necessities. On the surface, the impoverished may smile because, really, that is all he or she can do. What many people fail to realize is while that person is smiling, the stomach is grumbling from real hunger.

Fortunately, there are organizations that have been working tirelessly to combat malnutrition among children in the country’s poorest communities. Since 2002, Unilever Philippines has been running the Pasiglahin ang Batang Pinoy Supplementary Feeding Program in partnership with Kabisig ng Kalahi, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and various local government units (LGUs) through the barangay health centers.

The program has been renamed the “Makulay ang Buhay ng Batang Pinoy” (MBBP) Supplementary Feeding Program, and this continues as a nationwide campaign to alleviate the number of malnourished Filipino children, ages five and below, by 10 percent in the year 2015. This vision is in parallel with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, specifically Goal Number 1, which is to eradicate poverty and hunger in developing countries.

Knorr MBBP is a supplemental feeding program that provides one nutritious meal a day for a period of six months to the 30 most malnourished children in a targeted barangay. A glass of milk, courtesy of Mead Johnson, is also given to the children daily. MBBP likewise teaches mothers values formation and proper nutrition, to make sure that the gains of the program are sustained beyond the six-month period.

Since its inception, the program has helped improve the nutrition levels of more than 2,000 undernourished children through 70 feeding modules in Manila, Rizal, Parañaque, Bicutan, Cavite, Batangas and Las Piñas. As of 2007, 97 percent of the beneficiaries have successfully increased their weight while 62 percent have reached the desired nutrition levels.

The launch of “Makulay ang Buhay ng Batang Pinoy” was attended by guest of honor Stephen Anderson, the country director for the UN World Food Program. It is good to know that local companies are tying up with the United Nations as they are a group that makes the lives of people generally better.

There is so much to do when it comes to poverty and malnutrition. It’s more than giving people money and food; rather it takes a reeducation of sorts. The lessons must stick with the affected people so that their lives can consistently get better. The biggest issue here is not money or the lack of it; rather, it is a willingness to give on the part of beneficiaries and a willingness to learn on the part of those receiving the charity. Having the consent to give and to learn will definitely go a long way.

And really, the children are the true victims of poverty. Impoverished parents can keep on having kids but if they don’t learn that feeding them properly is one of the steps to making life better, then they should think twice before adding to the problem.

The MBBP Feeding Program is a step towards making a current problem — poverty — a thing of that past. With this (and similar projects) and a realization that every child needs proper nutrition, hunger because of poverty can indeed be stopped.

For more about the Makulay ang Buhay ng Batang Pinoy Feeding Program visit www.unilever.com.ph.

* * *

E-mail me at enricomiguelsubido@yahoo.com.