Kids In CAR Healthier During Quarantines

June 14, 2020 Metro BLISTT

BAGUIO CITY (June 12, 2020) — Children in the Cordillera turned healthier during the quarantines.
Having better access to food was how they have become, the National Nutrition Councilor for Cordillera concluded.
NNC – Cordillera director Rita Papey said that mothers spent more time to care for their children due to their confinement for the two months when enhanced and (later) general community quarantine was declared for Luzon.
In a mini-assessment on the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic where 40 barangays from 38 towns in the seven provinces and one chartered city of the region were surveyed, Papey said, majority or 53 percent of the respondents noted an improvement in the weight of young children compared to their height.
Some 40 percent of the respondents said that there was no effect and only seven percent said there was worsening of malnutrition cases.
Papey said the survey showed improvement in weights of children in said age bracket compared to before the ECQ/GCQ was declared. “In times of disasters in calamities, usually children of that age suffer from malnutrition,” claimed Papey in her presentation this week here.
Since mothers spent more time with their children, “bantay ang mga pagkain ng anak (the food of the children are closely monitored),” she said.
Also, Barangay Nutrition Scholars, volunteers who keeps watch on malnutrition incidence, closely monitored said population highly susceptible to malnutrition where they also provide food supplements.
“The mothers are more often at home so the children are better cared. Even if they go to the fields (to take care of their farm), there are less reasons to be out, so they actually stay home,” she said.
A respondent from Abra said that there was sufficient supply of relief goods from the Municipal Social Welfare Development Office and the local government unit, Papey noted.
In Baguio, there was an overflow of food, thanks to donations from private and civic
organizations and even barangays, aside from those coming from the Department of Social Welfare Development.
In Ifugao, malnourished children were prioritized in food distribution. Some of the text or private messages she received from mothers read: “In that two months, hanga nagkurang ti supply ti makkan, milk, oatmeal, oil, sugar, kamote, patatas (there was no shortage of food, milk, oatmeal, oil, sugar, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and others I can’t identify from the Rural Health Unit.”
The same person added that there were also food donations coming from the Philex Mines and the Philippine Red Cross that showed food supply was not lacking.
Another respondent said that there was improved care during the two month lockdown, and even some families have their own backyard family gardens or survival gardens.
But they added that hopefully, the pandemic should not last long because it will definitely affect food supply.
Meanwhile, Papey said that Cordillera has one of the lowest incidences of malnutrition in the Philippines. In 2013, while the country recorded an eight percent incidence for children aged zero to 59 months, Cordillera had six percent.
The 2015 figure showed a much lower number of only 4.5 in the region compared to the national figure of 7.15.
Artemio A. Dumlao/ABN