Only 6% of adult Malaysians eat enough fruits or vegetables daily

We need to invest more in making sure Malaysians are eating a healthy diet that includes enough fruits and vegetables. — The Star

Back in 2012 in Malaysia, you could buy a chicken burger meal with drinks and fries from a certain fast food restaurant for just under RM6. It was a good deal, but recently the government launched the Menu Rahmah initiative, which allows participating restaurants to offer lunch and dinner sets for even less.

This initiative to provide meals for only RM5 is a great idea that benefits consumers. Who doesn’t want more for less?

There’s been a lot of positive buzz surrounding the Menu Rahmah programme. Although it has its limitations, such as the requirement for restaurants to volunteer to participate, and diners being limited to one meal choice, it has still proven to be popular among both consumers and providers.

At the last count, approximately 12,000 Mamak restaurants, 800 Indian restaurants, and 500 tom yam stalls are participating, along with food outlets run by the Mydin chain. The programme’s success has even led to discussions with fast food restaurants, the Chinese Food Shops Association, and cafés at higher education institutions, indicating that the programme has the potential to expand further. Success breeds success, and it seems that the positive reaction to the Menu Rahmah programme will only continue to grow.

And it’s not junk food either. According to dietitians and nutritionists, the meals are well-balanced and contain an appropriate number of calories. While I personally believe that they could have added more vegetables, as long as you have fruit for dessert instead of a chocolate ice cream sundae, you should be in good shape.

It’s likely that the meal planners took into consideration the fact that Malaysia has a high obesity rate. Approximately 20.9% of adult women and 15.9% of adult men in Malaysia are obese, which is higher than the regional average of 10.3% for women and 7.5% for men.

With a Menu Rahmah meal containing only 500 calories per serving, it’s an ideal option for those who are trying to lose weight. Plus, since the meals are nutritious, you can rest easy knowing that you’re not just consuming empty calories.

On the other hand, young people in Malaysia are facing the opposite problem from obesity and, arguably, need to be eating more. Shockingly, about a fifth of Malaysian children under the age of five are classified as “stunted”, meaning they suffer from chronic undernutrition that leads to a failure to grow properly. Another 10% of children in this age group are considered to be “wasting”, meaning they’re also not getting adequate nutrition but over a shorter period.

These children require more food, ideally nutritious options. Unfortunately, a National Health and Morbidity Survey conducted in 2017 revealed that only 30% of Malaysian students eat breakfast daily before heading to school. The remaining 60% have breakfast irregularly, while 10% don’t have it at all.

In 2019, the Education Ministry took note of this issue and established the free breakfast programme. The programme aimed to provide 2.7 million schoolchildren across Malaysia with free meals before classes began. The hope was that this initiative would not only improve student performance, but also provide them with a healthy foundation for growth.

The programme faced controversy for several reasons. First, some argued that while it would help low-income families, higher-income families did not need the assistance. However, data shows that malnourishment is prevalent across all income groups. Although the B40 (lower) income group has the highest prevalence of malnourishment at 14.1% (as measured in the 2020 National Health Morbidity Survey 2020), the M40 (middle income) and T20 (top income) groups are not too far behind at 12.3% and 13.2% respectively.

Additionally, while stunting is most prevalent in the lowest household income bracket, even those in a higher bracket have children with stunted growth. A report by the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on South-East Asia said, “The 17.4% prevalence of stunting in households with income greater than RM5,000 is still high, compared with the 6.9% benchmark of upper middle income countries”.

Clearly, all Malaysians need help in understanding good dietary choices: only 6% of adults reportedly consume an adequate amount of fruits or vegetables daily.

The second reason why the free breakfast programme may not have succeeded is that it came with a price tag of between RM1.5bil and RM2bil annually, or up to RM750 per child per year. How-ever, the Menu Rahmah initiative costs the government nothing as it is based on the willingness of restaurant associations and owners to give back to the community.

The obvious issue – if it even needs to be said – is what happens when eatery owners feel that the Menu Rahmah is hitting their bottom line? What if the low profit choices mean their restaurants are full of people who aren’t actually making them money? By the way, that fast food menu price I quoted in the first paragraph was just a temporary promotion from the usual price of RM9.35.

A more sustainable solution is needed, and one idea is to encourage shops to offer more nutritious food without the extra frills to keep costs down.

One thing I would like to see Mamak shops do more of is to offer more fresh fruits and vegetables. I know they don’t do so because these are relatively expensive items and don’t have a long shelf life. But if such items are coupled with a good programme promoting their benefits, then a bad idea may turn into an OK (ie, profitable) idea – and, hopefully, ordering such healthy available choices then turns into a lifelong habit for consumers.

Budget 2023 is due to be tabled on Friday. I am not saying the government should U-turn and immediately reinstate the free breakfast programme in schools. However, it needs to recognise that the programme was well-intentioned and very much needed.

If this new government is serious about building a better Malaysia, and if we recognise the value of a healthier Malaysia is one that continues to grow over the coming decades, then instead of trying to get something for nothing, we can invest a little bit to get a lot more in return.

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In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.