By Marjorie Gorospe
QUEZON CITY, METRO MANILA--Most Filipinos have poor quality and insufficient food intake, according to the latest survey of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI).
The National Nutrition Survey was conducted in 2008 in 17 regions of the country involving 79 provinces including the National Capital Region.
The survey said more than seven in every 10 Filipinos across lack iron and Vitamin A in their diet which may also be due to consuming mostly rice, cooking oil, and sugar as food items and most households remained to be a rice-fish-vegetable diet.
For individual food consumption, the survey revealed that about 5 in every 10 pre-school and school age children, adolescent, adults and pregnant women, and about 6 out of 10 elderly and lactating mothers have inadequate protein intake.
The research, which covered 5,033 households in the NCR and 36,634 from the provinces, showed that there was a significant decline in the food intake among children, 6 months to 5 years old, from 562 grams in 2003 to 492 grams in 2008. It also revealed that there was a reduction in proportion of households meeting the required energy intake from 4 in every 10 households in 2003 to 3 in every 10 households in 2008.
Most of the population has a deficiency prevalence of Vitamin A, Iodine and Iron, especially in the province of Antique which happened to be one of the provinces in the country with high incidence of malnutrition.
According to FNRI research specialist Malou Galang, these results are essential to convey to the Filipinos the nutrition status of the country.
The FNRI is an institution attached to the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). To date the country's status of malnutrition remains high relative to the World Health Organization's target of 17.5 percent by 2015.
