Topic: Infant and Child Nutrition
Country: Sri Lanka
Delegate Name: Kumaran Nathan
School: Troy Athens High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Sri Lanka position papers GLIMUN 2019 committees
In Sri Lanka, rates of child undernutrition remain high. According to UNICEF, the causes of child undernutrition in Sri Lanka, a country that suffers no significant food shortages and provides extensive, free maternal and child health services, are not well understood. The root of the problem lies in a lack of knowledge surrounding nutrition and cultural factors affecting the utilisation of healthcare.
Sri Lanka has implemented many policies to address specific nutrition problems in children. Campaigns to promote breast-feeding of infants, including awareness creation of the nutritional benefits of breast-feeding, distribution of feeding bottles and teats to maternity hospitals and health care providers, and the provision of free and low cost supplies of infant formula to hospitals and health care facilities. Second, there is a salt iodization program to combat iodine deficiency disorders, including the prevalence of goiter and thyroid deficiencies.
Third, there is a program to fortify wheat flour with iron to combat problems of iron deficiency anemia. A variant of this program is pilot testing the mixing of iron and vitamin supplements in wheat flour.
Sri Lanka has implemented many policies to address specific nutrition problems in children. Campaigns to promote breast-feeding of infants, including awareness creation of the nutritional benefits of breast-feeding, distribution of feeding bottles and teats to maternity hospitals and health care providers, and the provision of free and low cost supplies of infant formula to hospitals and health care facilities.
In addition to these more specific problem Sri Lanka has put many other programs into place to promote child growth and address child malnutrition. These programs commence at conception and proceeds through fetal life, infancy and childhood. The interventions include family planning to space and limit children, antenatal care to ensure fetal growth and well-being, breast feeding, promoting appropriate weaning, growth monitoring, immunization programs, prevention of infections such as water-borne diseases, worm infestation and respiratory illnesses, use of oral rehydration solutions for children suffering from diarrhea, feeding during infections and food supplementation. These policies and programs to reduce child malnutrition are complemented by health and nutrition education. The Ministry of Health provides a range of health and nutrition education services. In terms of maternal education, activities exist to promote adequate food consumption and health care of pregnant and lactating mothers.
Exclusive breast feeding is encouraged and growth monitoring promoted for the first 4-6 months.
Nutrition education is carried out by health workers at the central, provincial and divisional levels. The school curriculum also contains material on nutrition, including hygienic food preparation, nutritious feeding habits, safe sanitary habits and consumption of clean drinking water. In addition, universities offer courses in nutrition at undergraduate and postgraduate degree levels.
No child should have to face malnutrition at any point in their lives. Access to healthy food and safe water sources should be considered a basic human right – regardless of socioeconomic status. In recent years, we are seeing a worrisome amount of malnutrition cases occurring across the globes. Even first world countries are experiencing this with the citizens that fall between the cracks and into poverty. Together, the World Health Organization must actively combat hunger and malnutrition. Children should not be tasked with the burden of hunger. We must be the first step towards creating a world in which children can focus on education, mental health, and their own future.
