THE food nutrition aid programme for children in Selangor will be expanded to all 56 state constituencies this year.
Called “Selangor Children, Healthy Children” (Asas), its pilot project started with only eight constituencies in 2021.
“The Selangor government is aware that the physical and mental growth and development of children need to be given priority,” said state public health, unity, women empowerment and family committee chairman Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud in her answer to a question from Haniza Mohamed Talha (Parti Bangsa Malaysia-Lembah Jaya) on healthy meal aid for children.
Dr Siti Mariah says nutrition packs this year will be given to 50 children from each of the 56 state constituencies in Selangor.
“The Selangor government, through the state public health committee, collaborated with International Islamic University Malaysia in 2021 to provide nutrition packs to 500 children from urban poor community in eight constituencies.
“The children aged six and below, who were suffering from malnutrition, received a nutrition pack each containing milk formula and multivitamins.
“The recipients were monitored for six months and their height and weight were measured monthly to observe their progress,” said Dr Siti Mariah.
She said data from the report showed a positive development, whereby the 500 children recorded an increase in height and weight.
“For 2022, improvements were made in terms of nutrition packs given, and the number of recipients was increased.
“The 720 children were divided into two cohorts, with each cohort following the programme for five months.
“The children each received a pack containing milk formula, grain-based nutritious food, multivitamins, wholemeal biscuits, fruit-based snacks and yogurt every month.
“For this year, nutrition packs will be given to 50 children in each state constituency in Selangor, making it a total of 2,800 recipients,” she said.
She stated that RM500,000 had been allocated by the state government for the initiative this year.
“An ‘Asas Carnival’ will also be held in all nine districts in Selangor.
“At the carnival, certified chefs will teach beneficiaries including parents and guardians how to prepare nutritious food using affordable ingredients,” she added.
Dr Siti Mariah said an “Asas hub” would be established in each state constituency as monitoring centres to ensure the programme’s sustainability in the long term, while Community Health Volunteers (Suka) would be trained to record recipients’ data and monitor their growth progress.
“Parents and guardians will also be given access to nutrition experts online if they have questions related to the children’s dietary patterns,” she said.
“In line with the digitalisation era, the state will be integrating methods to monitor the children’s growth progress, food history and dietary habits through the Selangkah app.
“This data can be accessed by beneficiaries for self-monitoring purposes while administrators monitor the programme’s effectiveness,” she explained.
Haniza asked a supplementary question on what the selection process was for the programme and plans to ensure its sustainability.
“The nutrition packs back in 2021 were prepared based on recommendations by Health Ministry and the Selangor Health Department,” said Dr Siti Mariah.
“However, the programme was tweaked the following year to ensure its sustainability.
“The nutrition packs were reduced slightly in terms of price value, but we included education materials for parents and guardians on how to feed their children nutritious food at affordable prices.
“With these adjustments, we were able to expand the number of recipients the subsequent years,” she said.
