GOVPH
MENU

Sa PPAN, panalo ang bayan!: National Dietary Supplementation Program

Details
Category: Region 10

NDSP InfographicsThe Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) 2017-2022 aims to address the country's malnutrition problems among children and other population groups.

Under the PPAN 2017-2022, eight (8) nutrition-specific interventions have been identified to address the immediate causes of malnutrition, physical inactivity, poor dietary intake, and diseases. The National Dietary Supplementation Program (NDSP) is one of the identified interventions. The program's primary priority is to supplement the dietary concern of nutritionally vulnerable groups, such as pregnant and lactating women, and infants and young children aged 6-23 months in food insecure households. The program also covers the undernourished children aged 3 to 5 years, and severely wasted Kinder to Grade 6 school children, particularly those from very poor neighborhoods and/or households.

In detail, five projects that fall under this program are as follows:

Project 1: Pregnant and lactating women's Dietary Supplementation Program;

Project 2: Infant and Young Child Dietary Supplementation Program (ages 6-23 months);

Project 3: Dietary Supplementation Program for Children Aged 24-59 months (those enrolled in day care facilities and CDCs, as well as in SNP groups);

Project 4: School-Age Children's Dietary Supplementation Program; and

Project 5: Food processing and manufacturing facilities for the production of food supplements (supplementary/complementary foods) and single micronutrient fortification of rice and other foods.

Republic Act (RA) No. 11037 or the Masustansyang Pagkain para sa Batang Pilipino Act was issued for the establishment of comprehensive national feeding program to address undernutrition problem among Filipino children. The components are School-Based Feeding Program, which DepEd provides food (nutribun, milk feeding and hot meals) to enrolled elementary school pupils. The Supplementary Feeding Program (SFP) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) focuses on children aged 3 to 4 years who are enrolled in Child Development Centers (CDC) and 2-4 years old children who are engaged in Supervised Neighborhood Play (SNP).

Even before the issuance of RA 11037, the feeding program of DepEd and DSWD have been in place for a long time which are assisted by multiple government offices across the country.

Moreover, the National Nutrition Council (NNC) conceptualized and implemented the Tutok Kainan Dietary Supplementation Program (TK DSP) with the Inter-agency Task Force on Zero Hunger to mitigate hunger and malnutrition problems among nutritionally vulnerable groups which include nutritionally-at-risk pregnant and lactating women and 6-23 months old children. This is in accordance to RA 11148 or also known as the First 1000 Days Law.

Other policies and guidelines on DSP are the DepEd’s SBFP is circularized through Department Orders (DOs). For SY 2020-21, DO No. 36, s. 2019 and DO No. 22, s. 2020 serve as bases for the implementation of the milk component for FY 2019 funds. In terms of feeding duration, the NDSP guidelines stipulates at least 90 feeding days. Dietary supplementation programs do not include feeding activities that are not compliant to certain calorie and protein supplementation level or those that last shorter than 90 days.

The country's nutrition situation remains a key public health concern. Through the National Dietary Supplementation Program, forms of malnutrition among vulnerable groups are addressed. It is critical to engage every sector and involve the community and families in the course of the program to ensure that those who have been affected receive adequate help and rehabilitation. Sa PPAN, panalo ang bayan! (PNFP Gwyn Y. Balaba)

References: