The Batasan Hills feeding program: Nutrition for kids

Gina Lesondra and Rosini Cabantog are concerned about the health of their children because they were suffering from severe malnutrition.

Lesondra’s three-year-old daughter Christine and Cabantog’s five-year old-son Meynard are undernourished mainly because they were not eating the proper food. Blame it on the poor access to information on nutrition.

Both Lesondra and Cabantog were not aware that they don’t need to buy expensive food and vitamins to provide nutrition to their children until feeding programs conducted by the various non-government organizations came to their barangay.

Lesondra, a mother of four children, said Christine was severely malnourished and underweight for her age. To compound her problem, Christine did not have a healthy diet and was hooked on junk food.

Cabantog, a mother of three, had the same experience. She was also concerned about the weight of Meynard because he was undernourished. She said Meynard did not have a good appetite and was fond of skipping meals.

Lesondra said the lectures in the feeding program gave her the proper information on nutrition. "I attended the lectures and I realized that I don’t need expensive ingredients to prepare nutritious meals," she said in Filipino.

This is the feeding program conducted by the Community and Family Services unit of Bantay Bata 163 (CFS-BB163) as part of a family-strengthening program being undertaken in Batasan Hills, Quezon City.

Cabantog said the feeding program was a big boost to all the mothers in the barangay who want to provide nutritious meals for their children.

The recent feeding program covers Barangay KAPASS and Sitio Korokan, two selected communities in Batasan Hills. Many other groups have generously conducted feeding programs in the communities before. The present project is spearheaded by BB163, through its Community and Family Services (CFS), as part of its family strengthening program in barangays.

To start off the program, children up to five years old were weighed last September 2001 and it was found that, in the two areas, 181 children were undernourished, 122 of whom would become regular participants of the project.

The feeding program has posted positive results. In just two months, from November 2001 to January 2002, CFS reported that the weight of 24 children suffering from first degree undernourishment (mild cases) have normalized. In the same period, children suffering from second-degree undernourished have also increased their weight significantly.

Although it was a good start for the feeding program, organizers say there is much work to be done. There are still 76 who are still underweight (first degree: 42; second degree: 29; third degree or those suffering from severe undernutrition: 5).

To ensure the sustainability of the program, the feeding sessions, as well as the seminars, will continue and will also include the 27 children whose health has stabilized. Moreover, children up to 12 years old are dewormed every six months. There’s also a regular "Patak Vitamin A," medical-dental outreach, immunization, as well as plans to put up a herbal medicine garden. Most importantly, feeding sessions are preceded by seminars on health for the parents.

The mothers have organized themselves into a group so they could eventually manage the feeding and weighing of children. Eventually, the fathers will also have to have greater participation in the activities and seminars.

The feeding project began with donors and volunteers coming to the community armed with medicine, vitamins and food. Although donations keep coming, the participating families decided to implement schemes such as putting up special projects to match the donations to prevent a dole-out mentality from developing among the recipients.

Since July last year, groups from the UP College of Medicine, the Quezon City Medical Society, the Office of Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr., Lingkod ER and the Philippine National Police Dental Society have gone around Quezon City and were able to serve around 4,000 individuals through medical outreach and counseling.

High school students from Miriam College have assisted in the feeding programs and so have the Barangay Health Center, the UP College of Medicine’s Phi Lambda Delta, the East Avenue Medical Center, the National Children’s Medical Center, and Center for Family Ministries. Initial donation arrived from Sustagen, Kellogs Cereals, Cerelac, Bakers Kingdom, and Enervon Choco.

According to a study conducted by the Council for the Welfare of Children (Child 21: A Legacy to the Filipino Children of the 21st Century. Makati, 2000.), majority of those suffering from malnutrition is between one and two years old.

"Children who are severely underweight, stunted or wasted (emaciated) are at a great risk of physical and mental retardation," says the study. "Those who survive their first five years show poor academic performance and lower levels of productivity in adulthood."