QUEZON CITY, May 6 (PIA) - -The Philippine Plan of Action (PPAN) for Nutrition 2017-2022 which was officially set in motion last May 2, 2017 in Iloilo City, aims for high reduction in the prevalence of all forms of malnutrition.

In her keynote speech, Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Paulyn Jean B. Rosell Ubial stressed the importance of a strengthened concerted efforts of all stakeholders to bring down the numbers.

“Nutrition is not just a problem of the health sector, but a problem of all of us. Aside from direct interventions, there is a need to mobilize all sectors for nutrition-sensitive tweaking of their programs to be able to complement the nutrition specific interventions,” Ubial stressed.

She added, “The PPAN plan document should be the music sheet of nutrition to enable everyone to play the symphony of nutrition improvement in harmony and with great bravado.”

The new PPAN is a results-based plan designed to achieve significant reductions in all forms of malnutrition such as wasting, stunting, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity in the country. The Plan was drafted based on a landscape of situational analysis of nutrition in the Philippines which shows that malnutrition in various forms remain high.

Based on the National Nutrition Survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) in 2015, 33.4% or 3.8 million Filipino children are stunted while 7.1 or 807,057 are wasted.  Overnutrition manifesting as overweight and obesity are emerging health concerns among children and a major problem among adults with 18 million Filipinos obese and overweight.  Micronutrient deficiency also remains a public health concern. Meanwhile, 24.8% of pregnant women are nutritionally at risk with iodine disorder affecting brain development of unborn and very young children. The cost of malnutrition greatly affects the country’s economy with a total loss of Php328 Billion in 2013 due to impacts of child stunting on education productivity. 

Ubial underscored the ambitious targets of the PPAN especially for stunting. Experts estimate that a doable reduction from 33.4% would be about 28.  But the NNC Governing Board challenged itself and stakeholders to a target reduction of 21%. The Secretary further challenged implementers for a 0 prevalence of stunting in all barangays by 2022.

The PPAN   is the country’s blueprint of actions for nutrition improvement. Anchored on the Philippine Development Plan, it is the country’s contribution to the attainment of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 which is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Moreover, PPAN 2017- 2022 also aims to support the World Health Assembly Global Targets to improve maternal, infant and young child nutrition by 2025.

It features 8 nutrition-specific programs devised to address the immediate causes of malnutrition such as inadequate food and nutrient intake, poor caregiving and parenting practices and the burden of infectious diseases complemented by nutrition sensitive programs which are already existing developmental programs that can be tweaked to produce nutritional outcomes. These programs will be enabled by intensive mobilization of LGUs which will involve capacity-building and mentoring on nutrition program management.

Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary for Health and National Nutrition Council (NNC) Executive Director Bernardita Flores  presented the new PPAN and expressed hope that it will be embraced not only by nutrition implementers but most especially by the Filipino People. (NNC/RJB/LFB/PIA-NCR)

- See more at: http://news.pia.gov.ph/regional/NCR/30

Written by: Ms. Lucia F. Brono, Information Officer III, Philippine Information Agency - NCR
Ms. Brono is a member of the NCR Nutrition Communication Resource Group, Regional Nutrition Management Group and Regional Nutrition Evaluation Team.