It was just earlier this week that Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said key systemic reforms were needed to make primary healthcare services in Malaysia capable of providing whole-person care throughout their lifespan, and not just for specific diseases.
He also said the proposed Health White Paper would focus on such fundamental reforms to address structural changes in the healthcare system. Hopefully, the reforms include nutrition.
A 2019 study showed that one in five children in Malaysia under age 5 are stunted — that's around 560,000 children — the number may be higher now.
Numbers tell us a lot about the challenge to wrest the stunting phenomenon in Malaysia, because stunting rates across the world have been improving in the past 20 years. A Bernama report cited the World Bank data in 2018 which said Malaysia's stunting rate among children under 5 was much higher than Gaza and the West Bank and other middle-income countries such as Ghana, Mexico, Kazakhstan and Macedonia.
Admittedly, it is a surprise to read that Malaysia has among the highest childhood stunting rates in the region — that's in contrast to having a reputation as a nation with one of the best healthcare sectors internationally. Some nutritionists say our children may be among the shortest in the region.
They also say the prevalence of stunting may have been a problem even before the pandemic due to the mismatch of nutrition intake in children. But what is stunting and why is it crucial to rein it in? Stunting is the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection and inadequate psychosocial stimulation.
Some economists say stunting could be a health crisis if left unchecked as the effects could be devastating. Affected children, they say, would have to cope with the impaired growth of their bodies, as well as the delayed or under-development of their brains.
Simply put, stunted children may learn more slowly and are less likely to reach their full potential as adults. A World Bank research said on average, countries lose seven per cent of the per capita gross domestic product because they did not eliminate stunting when their current workers were children.
Stunting is not just a simple growth issue — it is slowed development that can impact a child for the rest of his or her life. Stunted growth is also unflattering. But it is not an insurmountable problem.
It's all about nutrition — good nutrition, which is vital to children's growth and development at all stages. The most crucial time is when a child is between 1 and 5 years old and early adolescence, 10 to 15 years of age. Last month, the health minister identified the problem of insufficient nutrition in schools due to rising costs which hampered the effectiveness of the food supplementary programme — only 61 per cent of schools followed the prescribed menu.
Healthcare reforms aside, the government should invest in early childhood nutrition. Perhaps a subject on nutrition in schools?
Nutrition education is a fail-safe plan of action with good returns. Parents, too, need to make nutrition education a priority in their homes, for it is paramount that good health practices are instilled in children from an early age.