A young girl waits to purchase potato chips at
a shop in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. (Ben Paviour/The Cambodia Daily)
Despite
steady gains over the past two decades, about a third of Cambodia’s children
are still stunted—leaving them smaller, prone to illness and cognitively
impaired—according to new research that suggests a more flexible approach is
needed to continue progress.
Increased
education among parents, better maternal care, improved sanitation and higher
incomes were credited as the key drivers in reducing stunting from 51 percent
of children in 2000 to 34 percent in 2014, according to a study released last
week.
The
researchers from the U.K. said that there seemed to be divergent causes for the
drop in rural and urban areas.
The study,
titled “What Explains Cambodia’s Success in Reducing Child Stunting:
2000-2014?,” also finds that programs focused exclusively on improving child
nutrition had not shown sure signs of success.
“Maternal
best practices and parental education appear to be the most promising areas for
intervention in rural areas, whereas improvements in socio-demographic
endowments like wealth may produce a larger impact in urban areas,” the study
says.
“While
targeted child nutrition interventions may be making larger contributions to
reduction in stunting, there is very limited data at present on the coverage,
quality and impacts of these programmes in most developing countries.”
Among the
other major factors contributing to stunting were a lack of access to clean
water and proper toilets, as increased exposure to fecal matter has been found
to damage internal organs that process food, slowing physical and cognitive
development even if a child is given a nutritious diet.
Geoff
Revell, program director at sanitation NGO WaterSHED, said a concerted effort
by the government, medical workers, families and communities was needed to
convince people of all kinds of the importance of proper sanitation.
“If your
neighbors don’t have toilets, then even children that have toilets and good
nutrition might end up scoring lower on what’s called the height for age Z
score, which is essentially the tool most used to understand stunting,” he
said.
The
effects, he added, could be irreversible.
“Every
cohort that is malnourished or underfed, ultimately, they’re set back for
life,” he said. “What’s most troubling, I think, for people in the health
sector, are the long-term effects on the child’s wellbeing and quality of
life…. They suffer health problems over the course of their life. They’re set
back in terms of their cognitive abilities.”
Despite
its gains, Cambodia’s children remain among the most affected in Southeast Asia
when it comes to stunting, according to a March report from Unicef and the
World Health Organization.
In May,
researchers funded by France’s Institute for Development estimated an annual
loss of $266 million as a result of health problems and lost productivity among
those experiencing malnutrition. Their calculations, based on indicators of
malnutrition identified in the 2014 Cambodian Demographic Health Survey, found
stunting alone accounted for $120 million in lost costs due to resulting
complications in children and adults.
Ly
Sovann, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, declined to comment on the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment