EDITORIAL - Stunted

If individuals with the 6’8” height of American basketball superstar LeBron James are rare in the Philippines, the gene pool is not the only culprit. Nutrition also plays a key role in body build, the non-government organization Save the Children reported recently.

The lack of proper nutrients is common in developing countries, stunting growth, according to the report titled “Sizing Up: The Stunting and Child Malnutrition Problem in the Philippines.” Eighty percent of the world’s “stunted children” live in developing countries, with 3.6 million of them Filipinos, the report said. This ranked the country ninth among the top 14 countries with the largest number of stunted children.

Save the Children said studies indicate that height is not necessarily a racial or genetic trait. Chronic malnutrition stunts growth.

The study ranked the Philippines just behind India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in terms of the number of stunted children.

As of 2013, about 769,000 Filipinos suffered from “moderate or severe wasting” due to chronic malnutrition, Save the Children reported. Deficient nourishment especially in the first 1,000 days after birth impairs cognitive and physical development, according to the group.

Chronic malnutrition is linked to poverty so the problem is expected to persist in the country. The report should spur greater action to boost the nation’s food security and intensify supplemental feeding programs in impoverished communities. Stunted growth prevents a nation’s most precious resource, its people, from achieving their full potential, thereby also stunting national competitiveness.