Critical challenges ahead on child malnutrition issue: Oversight Committee report

The report of the Select Committee of Parliament to look into the child malnutrition issue in the country found that the June 2023 Nutrition Monthly report identified an increase in underweight and stunting among infants and children up to two years of age compared to 2022. 

The Report further stated that babies born with a birth weight of 2500 grams or less are considered to be low birth weight and according to the National Nutrition and Micronutrient Survey conducted in 2022, the prevalence of low birth weight in a nationally representative sample was 15.9%. 

The most alarmingly high underweight rate of 24.6% was recorded in Nuwara Eliya district, where one in every four children was identified as moderately or severely underweight, the report said.

The report of the Select Committee of Parliament to look into whether the child malnutrition issue in Sri Lanka is aggravating and to identify short-term, medium-term, and long-term measures to be taken in that regard, as well as to oversee the speedy implementation of the identified measures was presented to Parliament by Member of Parliament, Rohini Kumari Wijerathna on behalf of the Select Committee Chair Vadivel Suresh recently (04).

In June 2023, the proportion of children affected by poverty in Sri Lanka is 10%, according to this report. 1.2% of all children under the age of 5 are affected by severe acute malnutrition and numerically nearly 16,000 children suffer from such acute malnutrition, according to the report.

According to the report, the Nutrition Month 2023 report revealed a 10.3% increase in stunting among children under the age of five, an increase of 9.2% from the previous year. The report has revealed that the causes of chronic malnutrition, which are short or short in height compared to children of the same age, occur
over time.

Meanwhile, according to the survey conducted in 2022, a nationally representative sample of children aged 5-18 years found that shortness, overweight and obesity increase with age.

The report has shown that a lack of food security at the household level has also contributed to malnutrition. Due to the economic crisis in the year 2022, 98% of the entire population has been affected by the increase in food prices, and as a result, 74% of the households could not afford to buy food or daily essentials in the last six months of that year, according to the report. The number of food insecure households increased to 24% in the third quarter of 2023 compared to 17% in March 2023.

 A third of all families have reduced the frequency of cooking or limited their consumption and a quarter live on food from neighbors.

The report provides conclusions and recommendations for improving child 
nutrition. It emphasized the importance of immediate attention to children before they become chronically malnourished.

The report also emphasized the need for adequately skilled field health staff to provide quality Maternal and Child Nutrition (MCN) services for Maternal and Child Health (MCH) programs. The report also emphasized that vitamin A supplementation should be considered again before this becomes a problem again, as vitamin A supplementation has been discontinued for school children.

The need for urgent action to improve the food security status of families with children under the age of five has also been highlighted. 

The report also recommends using existing health management information systems to identify focal areas of malnutrition in children and to map risk to address malnutrition in order to identify the most vulnerable families and causal factors.