When we hear the world “malnourished,” the images that come to mind are emaciated children from poor communities waiting for their next Nutribun or porridge. This malnutrition problem has stunted the growth of our children in the past decades. Children do not grow to their full potential physically and mentally because of bad or no food. This is brought about by the rising poverty incidence or lack of access to nutritious food.
On the other end of the malnutrition spectrum are those who are obese and unhealthy due to bad nutrition. This may include consumption of convenience food, including instant noodles, canned or processed food and fried food from fast-food chains. Convenience stores also offer quick meals for the working class, but largely sugar- and fat-laden choices.
The Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) has created a Shared Prosperity Committee to encourage our corporate members to help address this malnutrition problem. After all, many of the food companies can do corporate social responsibility efforts as a collaboration project with their peers to slowly but surely address our malnutrition situation. These children will compose our future workforce so it is in our best interest to help educate them by feeding them well. Education or knowledge transfer won’t be effective if a child can’t think due to hunger or lack of nutrition. In fact, many accounts relate that children can’t absorb what teachers teach them because they are hungry when they go to school. This is why the Department of Education has feeding programs to incentivize parents to let children attend school, if only for stomachs to be fed and next, for brains to be fed as well. We hope this program continues nationwide.
Next is really looking at nutrition from locally available fresh food instead of convenience or processed food. In Bukidnon, children get to drink fresh milk because there is a dairy industry in the area. In other places, locally abundant food should be supplied by communities, cooperatives and farmers’ associations under the community participation program of the Government Procurement Board, as shared with us at a recent UN Women Roundtable on gender-responsive procurement. And under the Magna Carta for SMEs, 10% of government spending must be enjoyed by MSMEs that can supply food to these feeding programs. It just takes awareness of how local government units can help local producers while giving children healthy food. This should be an easy way to solve the malnutrition problem, with the help of MAP members who can help mobilize these activities.
Stunted growth is a real problem, not only because these children will grow up short physically but also mentally challenged to learn and take on new information in this rapidly progressing world of the internet and metaverse. How will our future workers cope? We must be concerned about how to stop the malnutrition problem if we are to think of our company’s sustainability in the next 20 years, at least.
When I dined at a restaurant in faraway Marilog, Davao, I was pleased to see mostly diminutive young women from the Matigsalog tribe serve and wait at tables in this farm-to-table restaurant. Though lacking in height, they were so adept at working with the digital Point of Sale system, espresso machines and other equipment in this modern food facility. I thought they could be taught because they are all clean slates undisturbed by gadgets and social media and true enough, the owner confirmed that he could train these indigenous people with absolutely no culinary background.
Thank God for good natural food, their brains developed to adapt to modern needs, despite the probable lack of other nutrition or stimuli earlier in their lives. I could not help but commend the chef-owner for painstakingly training newbies and fresh out-of-school youth to have responsible jobs at his restaurant.
But malnutrition does not happen only in far-flung areas. We also see it in urban places because of easy access to convenience food. Kids no longer eat fresh fruits and vegetables because these may not be included in their food budgets. Children do not eat balanced meals because their parents are financially challenged even if they have double incomes.
I remember the film where an immigrant family in the USA could afford two burgers for 99 cents (P54) but could not afford fruits and vegetables. So they subsist on fastfood, which has become the main reason for rising diabetes in young people as well as obesity. That is also now happening in our country. Sit in a mall for an hour and observe how many obese youth you can find among mall goers. I always observe what they order at restaurants and I’m convinced fastfood is the main cause of this growing problem.
So, as employers of these future workers, we should address this problem. We will soon have a working citizenry made up of malnourished children in rural and urban areas whose mental abilities will be impaired and whose potential may be hampered simply by lack of good, healthy and nutritious food sources. We can find simple solutions to this growing challenge and threat to the sustainability of our enterprises. We must start now if we are to ensure the availability of a healthy and bright workforce in the future.
MAP’s plan for Shared Prosperity is timely and worth working on, all for our own good, too.
Chit U. Juan is co-vice chairman of the MAP Environment Committee. She is president of NextGen Organization of Women Corporate Directors and founder of the ECHOstore Sustainable Lifestyle. She is a member of the global Slow Food community promoting good, clean and fair food.
