Stunted

FIRST PERSON

- ALEX MAGNO

The numbers are stark. According to the DOST's Food and Nutrition Research Institute, a third of Filipino children under the age of five is stunted due to chronic malnutrition.

A third of the next generation of Filipinos is severely handicapped for life. This staggering number will have serious learning limitations, live their lives in poorer health and have narrowed job opportunities. At every stage of life, they face numerous barriers.

This is a silent epidemic. It does not only ravage lives. This epidemic delimits the nation's capacity to progress.

Yet there does not seem to be a government program of any breadth to deal with this epidemic. Stunting causes irreversible damage to health. The victims, however, do not form a noisy constituency. In the populist democracy we have, the noisy wheel gets the oil.

The World Health Organization (WHO) repeatedly called the attention of nations to the long-term problems caused by child stunting. But even at the international level, there does not appear to be a comprehensive program to combat child malnutrition.

A major study published in the respected journal The Lancet found that stunting can hold back national growth, reducing a country's GDP by up to 10 percent. With a third of our children chronically malnourished, the Philippines should be among the nations most adversely affected by stunting.