FOUR million more Filipinos skipped meals as their food supplies ran out as of last year, according to the latest report from the United Nations (UN).
Based on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021, there were 46.1 million Filipinos who are considered moderately or severely insecure between 2018 and 2020, higher than the 42.1 million posted between 2014 and 2016.
The report noted that 4.3 million or a million more Filipinos experienced severe food insecurity between 2018 and 2020. In 2014 and 2016, the number was at 3.3 million.
“Moderate food insecurity (is) a state of uncertainty about the ability to get food; a risk of skipping meals or seeing food run out; being forced to compromise on the nutritional quality and/or quantity of food consumed,” the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) explained.
“Severe food insecurity (means) running out of food; experienced hunger; at the most extreme, having to go without food for a day or more,” it added.
The data showed that around 4 percent of the population was considered severely food insecure while 42.7 percent were considered moderately food insecure between 2018 and 2020.
As a result, the data showed that around 600,000 children aged five years old or younger were affected by wasting as of 2020.
There was also an increase in the number of adults, 18 years old and above, considered obese. As of 2020, 4.1 million adults were obese in the Philippines, nearly a million more than the 3.2 million recorded in 2012.
“No region of the world has been spared. The high cost of healthy diets and persistently high levels of poverty and income inequality continue to keep healthy diets out of reach for around 3 billion people in every region of the world,” the report stated.
“Moreover, new analysis in this report shows that the increase in the unaffordability of healthy diets is associated with higher levels of moderate or severe food insecurity,” it added.
However, in terms of stunting, there was a decline. Data showed 3 million children below five years old were stunted as of 2020, lower than the 3.6 million recorded in 2012.
The number of adults, 15 to 49 years old, who were affected by anemia declined to 2.5 million as of 2019 from 4.2 million in 2012.
The report noted that despite the pandemic, countries like the Philippines were able to create global best practices in terms of addressing hunger and malnutrition.
A law in the Philippines extends to products marketed or labelled as being suitable for infants and children up to 36 months.
The Philippines also prohibits advertising, provision of samples or gifts, point-of-sale promotions, with robust provisions to keep industry at arm’s length from health workers/facilities, and strict rules on product labelling, as well as the use of cartoons.
“Protecting children of all ages from the harmful impacts of food marketing is an essential food system action, a moral imperative and a human rights obligation. It can be done through a combination of legislation on marketing of breastmilk substitutes, foods for infants and young children, and marketing to which children are exposed in general,” the report noted.
The report noted that between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 – or 161 million more than in 2019.
Nearly 2.37 billion people did not have access to adequate food in 2020 – an increase of 320 million people in just one year.
Further, millions of under-5 children affected by stunting reaching 149.2 million; wasting, 45.4 million; and overweight, 38.9 million.
More than half of all undernourished people or 418 million live in Asia; more than a third or 282 million live in Africa; and a smaller proportion of 60 million live in Latin America and the Caribbean.
FAO noted the sharpest rise in hunger in Africa, where the estimated prevalence of undernourishment – at 21 percent of the population – is more than double that of any other region.
“On current trends, (the report) estimates that Sustainable Development Goal 2 – Zero Hunger by 2030 – will be missed by a margin of nearly 660 million people. Of these 660 million, some 30 million may be linked to the pandemic’s lasting effects,” FAO said.
The report is jointly published by the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
WB report
Last month, a report from the World Bank said healthy diets remain elusive for many Filipinos as these prove costly even for the average Juan.
In a report, titled “Undernutrition in the Philippines: Scale, Scope, and Opportunities for Nutrition Policy and Programming,” the World Bank said this conclusion is based on the cost of the recommended diet (CoRD) methodology.
CoRD estimates showed a healthy diet costs P68 per day but households only spent P48 per adult per day. The report noted that this is based on 2015 data.
The World Bank recommends that the country invest in nutrition. They estimated that every dollar invested in “high-impact, nutrition-specific interventions” by the Philippines will increase adult incomes by $66, one of the highest in 34 countries.
Due to the high cost of a healthy diet, Filipinos mostly consumed rice or starches. Based on 2015 data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), Filipinos consumed 159 percent of the recommended consumption of starchy staples (particularly rice).
However, Filipinos consumed only 22 percent of the requirement for vegetables, 10 percent for fruits, 12 percent for eggs, 79 percent for meat and pulses, 33 percent for milk, and 29 percent for fats and oils.
This may lead to what is termed as “hidden hunger.” The report called this “a form of malnutrition caused by a lack of vitamins and minerals in the diet such as vitamin A, iron, zinc, folic acid, and iodine.”