Many Cambodian Children Are Facing Malnutrition - UNICEF

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Many Cambodian Children Are Facing Malnutrition - UNICEF

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Cambodian children face crisis from poor diets
The situation could get much worse under the Covid-19 pandemic, warns new UNICEF report
UCA News reporter
Published: September 22, 2021 08:12 AM GMT ▾

Cambodian children under the age of two are not getting the food or nutrients they need to thrive and grow well, leading to irreversible developmental harm, according to a new report released by UNICEF's global office today.

"Fed to Fail? The crisis of children’s diets in early life" — released ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit this week — warns that rising poverty, inequality, conflict, climate-related disasters and health emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic are contributing to an ongoing nutrition crisis.

In Cambodia, one in three children are stunted and one in 10 are wasted, while the report noted that globally just one in three children are fed a diet diverse enough to grow well when transitioning to solid foods.

“As UN agencies working closely with the Royal Government of Cambodia, we commend the expansion of cash transfer programs to reduce hardship, particularly for maternal and childhood nutrition,” said Foroogh Foyouzat, UNICEF representative for Cambodia.

The report found 40 percent of Cambodian children from six months to 23 months were getting the minimum number of food groups but nearly two-thirds of those children were from the top quintile.

“Now we must invest in lasting support for the critical first thousand days of children’s lives,” Foyouzat said in a statement.

Poor nutritional intake in the first two years of life can irreversibly harm children’s rapidly growing bodies and brains

“Such investment also contributes to each child’s educational attainments and productivity for the rest of their life. Now more than ever an increase in national budgets is needed for scaling up nutrition programs.”

UNICEF said diet among the world’s youngest had shown little sign of improvement in the last 10 years with children under the age of two being the most vulnerable to all forms of malnutrition — stunting, wasting and micronutrient deficiencies — as a result of poor diets.

It also said low knowledge of nutrition and aggressive marketing of breast milk substitutes contribute to low dietary diversity for children and a reduction in exclusive breastfeeding.
https://www.ucanews.com/news/cambodian- ... iets/94254#
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Re: Many Cambodian Children Are Facing Malnutrition - UNICEF

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Published: 25 October 2022
The associations between stunting and wasting at 12 months of age and developmental milestones delays in a cohort of Cambodian children

Marion Van Beekum, Jacques Berger, Judit Van Geystelen, Gabriela Hondru, Somphos Vicheth Som, Chan Theary, Arnaud Laillou, Etienne Poirot, Kirsten A. Bork, Frank T. Wieringa & Sonia Fortin

Scientific Reports volume 12, Article number: 17859 (2022) Cite this article

Abstract


Worldwide, over 250 million children under 5 years do not reach their developmental potential due to several causes, including malnutrition.
In Cambodia, the prevalence of stunting and wasting among children remains high. This prospective cohort study aimed to assess acquisition of motor and cognitive developmental milestones in early childhood and their associations with stunting and wasting.

Children aged from 0 to 24 months were recruited from three provinces in Cambodia and followed up to seven times from March 2016 to June 2019, until their 5 years. Data collection included anthropometry and developmental milestones. Seven motor and seven cognitive milestones were evaluated using the Cambodian Development Milestone Assessment Tool. Associations were assessed with parametric survival models. Hazard ratios (HR) below 1 stood for lower probabilities for achieving developmental milestones. Data were available for 7394 children.

At 12 months, the prevalence of stunting and wasting were 23.7% and 9.6% respectively. Both were consistently associated with delays in most motor and cognitive milestones. Stunting was strongly associated with delays in gross motor milestones (HR < 0.85; p < 0.001). Wasting was more strongly associated with delays in fine motor development and most cognitive milestones (HR < 0.75; p < 0.001). Promoting nutritional programs in the first 1000 days to prevent malnutrition is essential to further the optimal growth and motor and cognitive development of Cambodian children.

Read or download: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-22861-2
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Re: Many Cambodian Children Are Facing Malnutrition - UNICEF

Post by newkidontheblock »

Older sister has to feed her family - husband + 4 kids, younger sister + 2-3 kids and new husband, father, older brother + whatever girl he brings, and younger brother, every day. None of them give her money for the food. So they get fed all from the same pot of rice. 1 chicken a meal to feed 10-14 people every meal.

And UNICEF is worried about nutrition for babies?

There‘s barely enough to feed everyone as it is.
Missus sends her sacks of rice, dried fish, beef, pork to supplement. But no one else cares. They just expect food, no care where it comes from, no desire to contribute.

Just had to get it off my chest, sorry.
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Re: Many Cambodian Children Are Facing Malnutrition - UNICEF

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newkidontheblock wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:38 am Older sister has to feed her family - husband + 4 kids, younger sister + 2-3 kids and new husband, father, older brother + whatever girl he brings, and younger brother, every day. None of them give her money for the food. So they get fed all from the same pot of rice. 1 chicken a meal to feed 10-14 people every meal.

And UNICEF is worried about nutrition for babies?

There‘s barely enough to feed everyone as it is.
Missus sends her sacks of rice, dried fish, beef, pork to supplement. But no one else cares. They just expect food, no care where it comes from, no desire to contribute.

Just had to get it off my chest, sorry.
Meanwhile I bet all those adults have no trouble in finding money to buy themselves a beer or fruit and food to put on display when remembering the past lives of their ancestors.
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Re: Many Cambodian Children Are Facing Malnutrition - UNICEF

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newkidontheblock wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:38 am And UNICEF is worried about nutrition for babies?
Yes, they are. If you are planning on breeding, you probably should be, too. Malnutrition is surprisingly common in developed countries, too.
A lot happens in those first couple of years.
There’s no suggestion (in those quoted articles) that concerns about nutrition don’t exist at other stages. In fact, even among households that aren’t having a difficult time, there’s a tendency towards easy short cuts and giving in to kids fussy natures, for all sorts of reasons.
While there’s a lot of awareness of such problems in some regions, it’s easy to forget or dismiss the different thinking.
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Re: Many Cambodian Children Are Facing Malnutrition - UNICEF

Post by phil »

Numbers such as these - legitimate though they may well be - tend not to influence people to act, to donate, to help, to do a little something. Our human responses are more often influenced by the things we see. With open eyes we can see thin, dirty, ragged children, and many of us are moved to do something to help - even if only in a small way. We are all bounded by our own limited resources; none of us can change the world but we can all help a bit.

Call this an example of "virtue signalling" if you like - however I draw your attention to the actions of The Pickled Parrot Pub and Guesthouse, 167, street 136, Phnom Penh. Over the past four and a half years The Parrot, management, staff, friends and customers have paid for, prepared and donated an average of 100 meals per week to children and their carers attending the Outpatients Clinic at the Childrens Hospital, Phnom Penh. Meals are rice based with meat and vegetables.

At the time of writing the number of meals freely given over that time exceeds 18,200; and during the last 12 month period of the COVID episode more than 1 tonne of rice was given to the Friends International Trade Training School to support marginalised youth and their families during the time of high unemployment.

There is no reward or pay-off for the people who do this, except for a 'thank you' and a cup of tea on the day of meal delivery. No pay, no ride in a big 4WD, but a mention and thank you on The Pickled Parrot website.

The point of this is to suggest that you too can find a way to offer some small help to any honest group - or do it individually - as often as you are able from within your own resource limitations.

We will not change the world, but we will at least offer some small support to people having a hard time. And I think most of us have had the occasional hard time in our own life. We try to understand.

Thank you for your time :-)
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Re: Many Cambodian Children Are Facing Malnutrition - UNICEF

Post by mannanman »

newkidontheblock wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:38 am Older sister has to feed her family - husband + 4 kids, younger sister + 2-3 kids and new husband, father, older brother + whatever girl he brings, and younger brother, every day. None of them give her money for the food. So they get fed all from the same pot of rice. 1 chicken a meal to feed 10-14 people every meal.

And UNICEF is worried about nutrition for babies?

There‘s barely enough to feed everyone as it is.
Missus sends her sacks of rice, dried fish, beef, pork to supplement. But no one else cares. They just expect food, no care where it comes from, no desire to contribute.

Just had to get it off my chest, sorry.
Missus sends her rice etc that you pay for?
Why would anyone help when they have a cash cow barang from “Americee”?

Rod and back come to mind.
People of the world, spice up your life.
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