From 8% in 2019 to 15% in 2022, the intake of less than three meals a day doubled in households with minors in Latin America; this according to the results of the 2022 Survey, by UNICEF.
In Panama, according to the ENSPA 2019, 14.8% of children under 5 years of age suffer from chronic malnutrition, a statistic that if we extrapolate to the indigenous Comarcas, it represents almost half of the children in those areas. We are talking about more than 60,000 boys and girls.
On the other hand, undernourishment or hunger at the national level impacts 5.8% of the population, in other words, more than 200,000 Panamanians will go to bed hungry today, a statistic that is embarrassing despite our GDP.
In the statement, UNICEF also highlights that «children and adolescents must be at the center of national social protection policies, to help them and their families to recover and prosper”. However, the Healthy Panama Foundation has received complaints from volunteers, citizens and teachers in regional areas who report that children in these areas usually consume only one daily meal whose main sources of food are rice, beans, cassava and Chinese plantain. ; and that is complemented with the plate of food (second option) of the schools, however, due to processes of mismanagement or bureaucracy, said second option does not coincide with the school year that begins in March and the food usually arrives in November. A close friend of the Foundation mentions: “the school snack milk and biscuit only began to be given in September of this year, months before the end of the school year”.
Food and nutritional insecurity is a problem that we must address today, since its consequences affect the development of the country. That is why, with the aim of showing improvement alternatives to permanent physical, social and economic access to safe and nutritious food for all people, to meet nutritional requirements, the Healthy Panama Foundation held on Friday, October 21, the Social forum “Food Insecurity and Malnutrition, a risk for a healthy future” broadcast directly from the Comarca Ngäbe Bugle-Soloy-Distrito de Besiko, through the YouTube Channel of the Foundation.
TEXT:
Jose Ramiro Lopez Guevara, ND.
President
Healthy Panama Foundation
