National nutrition survey reveals disturbing trends

A national survey conducted over the past two years to probe the nutritional status of women and children has yielded disturbing trends, with an estimated 38 percent of children between the ages of six months and five years reported underweight, and another 36.8 percent stunted, according to an analyst. "We were expecting to find high levels of malnutrition, but to find that 38 percent of our children are underweight is worrisome," Dr A. R. Kemal, the director of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday. The PIDE conducted the National Nutrition Survey 2001-2002 on behalf of the Planning Commission of Pakistan, which formally launched the report on Monday. Kemal said the findings highlighted the need for such surveys to be carried out as regularly as possible, so that the findings could then be applied towards working for a comprehensive solution. "How are we going to provide people with better nutrition if we don’t know what they are suffering from?" he asked. According to Dawn, a leading English-language broadsheet, the last time such a survey was carried out was over 17 years ago. Speaking at the launch of the latest report, Kemal suggested the establishment of a council to conduct similar surveys every three years to keep statistics up to date, the newspaper reported. Other startling figures from the survey revealed that 12.5 percent of women were malnourished, with the figure jumping to 16.1 percent for lactating mothers; 6.5 percent of school children aged six to 12 years were found to have palpable or visible goitre, with the percentage rising to 21.2 in the case of mothers; while 22.9 percent of school children and 36.5 percent of mothers were found to be severely iodine-deficient. "People in Pakistan suffer from four types of deficiencies: zinc, iron, vitamin A and iodine," Kemal said, adding that he thought it important for fortified foods to be made available to people. "If that were the case, if fortified foods were available, most people would be better off," he said, pointing out that while acceptability levels might vary from person to person, it would be a worthwhile endeavour. No one from the government was looking into it, Kemal said. "No one really owns up to the task." "The government hasn’t been doing enough. Things move at a very slow pace," Dr Noor Ahmed Khan, the national programme officer of Micronutrients International, an international organisation operating under the UN charter, told IRIN in Islamabad. "But now, the ministry of health is taking an initiative, so we’re hopeful that things will speed up now," he added. At the launch of the report, the Planning Commission’s chief economist, Dr Tahir Parvez, said the government lacked sufficient expertise to evaluate nutritional values, according to Dawn.