Pressing issue: Among the primary causes of stunting are poor feeding practices, low access to nutritious foods, inadequate access to health services and poverty, according to a World Bank report. — Reuters
Last week, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) rightly called the nation’s attention to a “silent pandemic” that has been plaguing poor and vulnerable Filipinos for far too long: childhood stunting, one of the world’s most serious and yet least-addressed problems that the government fervently hopes the private sector can help solve.
Characterised by prolonged nutritional deficiency among infants and young children, leaving them small for their age, stunting is a particularly pressing issue in the Philippines, with 29% or one in three children below five years old suffering from stunting, according to the 2021 World Bank report.
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