Siquijor Province - The Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) is the structural framework of the government to address the high malnutrition rate of the country. It is a result-based policy outline for nutrition programs and interventions which comprises of eight (8) nutrition specific, ten (10) nutrition sensitive programs and three enabling interventions. PPAN comes with a budget and has a monitoring and evaluation scheme to account the development in the implementation of the programs.
What is nutrition specific programs? Nutrition specific programs are program strategies to produce direct nutritional results. It addresses the immediate causes of maternal and child malnutrition such as micronutrient deficiency, underweight, stunting, wasting and obesity. Nutrition specific program is stimulated on the WHO Essential Nutrition Actions and pre-existing programs and the recommendations of Lancet Maternal and Child Nutrition Series.
What covers the nutrition specific programs? The PPAN comprises of eight (8) nutrition specific programs. These programs are the following:
1. Infant and young child feeding (IYCF). Particularly in the first two years of the child’s life, IYCF is the key to achieve the full potential of the child’s growth and development.
2. Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition. It is a cohesive action to fight acute malnutrition specifically designed among 6-59 months old children.
3. National Dietary Supplementation Program. This specific program aims to enhance the diets of the nutritionally susceptible groups coming from the food insecure households mainly the pregnant women, infants and young children 6-23 months, 3 years old to 5 years old children and severely wasted/wasted kinder to Grace 6 school children.
4. National Nutrition Promotion Program for Behavior Change. To bring out behavior change in the eating habits and lifestyle of Filipinos; nutrition education is considered as one of the crucial intercessions to address malnutrition by providing education and knowledge to people.
5. Micronutrient supplementation (vitamin A, iron-folic acid, multiple micronutrient powder, zinc). Micronutrient supplementation is the provision of pharmaceutical prepared vitamins such as Vit. A and minerals such as iron and zinc to prevent and address the specific micronutrient deficiency.
6. Mandatory food fortification (technology development, capacity building, regulation and monitoring, promotion). “The State recognizes that food fortification is vital where there is a demonstrated need to increase the intake of an essential nutrient by one or more population groups, as manifested in dietary, biochemical or clinical evidence of deficiency. Food fortification is considered important in the promotion of optimal health and to compensate for the loss of nutrients due to processing and/or storage of food.”
7. Nutrition in emergencies. “Nutrition in emergencies (NiE) is defined as the nutrition services that are part of emergency preparedness, response and recovery to prevent deterioration of nutritional status and death.”
8. Overweight and obesity management and prevention program. The country is facing a double edge sword malnutrition. Aside from the existing undernutrition, increasing cases of overnutrition such as overweight and obesity must also be addressed. Weight management programs are necessary to improve lifestyle habits like healthy diets and physical activities to address the trend of over nutrition problem.
It is believed that ninety percent (90%) of the target population must be reached to significantly reduce the prevalence of maternal and child malnutrition. Operationalizing the program involves working implementation plan with corresponding budget that covers implementing activities for each specific program. These implementation plan must also be updated annually to respond to the evolving nutritional situation. // ND II Gracey E. Adolfo, RND
