Group seeks inclusion of nutrition education in school curriculum

As the world focuses on closing the nutritional gap for infants during World Breastfeeding Week (August 1-7), Nguvu Change Leader Alheri Billyok is drawing attention to prevailing health and nutrition inequities, as well as the growing malnutrition crisis in Nigeria.

In June this year, a shocking Medicins Sans Frontiers’ report revealed that their facilities in northern Nigeria had recorded an extraordinary increase in admissions of severely malnourished children with life-threatening complications, noting two times more admissions than last year in some locations.

In the same period, a new UNICEF report (Child Food Poverty: Nutrition Deprivation in Early Childhood) also stated that around 11 million children in Nigeria were experiencing severe food poverty, making them 50 per cent more likely to suffer from wasting, a life-threatening form of malnutrition.

Billyok stresses that children must receive good nutrition right from birth, adding: “Even though breastfeeding offers better immunity and long-term health benefits to children, in Nigeria, breastfeeding is hampered by socio-cultural misconceptions and lack of information.”

She attributed Nigeria’s spiraling child malnutrition numbers to high rates of inflation, increasing food prices and wrong child feeding practices, noting: “At a time when families are relying on cheap, over-processed foods to feed their children, it is important to take nutrition education directly to students via their school curriculum. This will also educate mothers to make more diverse food choices for their children.”

In an online petition, Billyok also recalled volunteering at the dietetics department of a public hospital in Kaduna where she witnessed the suffering of malnourished children first-hand, stating: “It is important to create awareness about healthy eating for young children and the implications of eating processed foods. When students understand the connection between an unhealthy diet and chronic diseases, their relationship with food will change for the better.”

She hoped that the food systems in the country would be improved to increase the accessibility of nutritious foods so that malnutrition among millions of Nigerian children could be addressed proactively.