Wire Reports
More
than half of children in Viet Nam lack basic vitamins and iron while
many are either under- or overweight, a new survey said, blaming the
nation’s strange nutritional situation on parents’ skewed
priorities.
The
children suffer a deficiency in vitamins A, B1, C, and D and iron and
every one in three or four of them are in “unusual nutrition
status,” according to the survey conducted by the Health
Ministry’s National Nutrution Institute in Vietnam, Malaysia,
Indonesia and Thailand, according to media reports.
A
student girl is given vitamin drops. Photo courtesy of Tuoi Tre.
Conducted
between 2010 and 2012 on 16,744 children from 6 months to 12 years
old, including 2,880 in Viet Nam, the survey found Viet Nam had the
worst nutrition figures among the four countries.
Le
Nguyen Bao Khanh from the institute said the survey gave Viet Nam a
chance to compare its nutritional situation with nearby countries
considering socio-economic situation, exercise and eating habits, as
well as children’s diets including their levels of vitamins, calcium,
and their development.
Experts
called Viet Nam’s a “double nutrition problem.”
The
survey found more children in rural areas are underweight, at a rate
of 20.8 percent, while the rate in the city was 10.8 percent.
Obese
children in cities were found at a rate five times that of the rural
rate – 29 percent to 5.5 percent.
Nearly
half of boys and more than 58 percent of girls in cities lack vitamin
D; so do 47 percent of children in rural areas, while the rates of
children with iron deficiencies varied in ages and peaked at those
between 6 months old and 2 years old – 25.9 percent in cities and
54.3 percent in rural areas.
Khanh
said many parents still have unhealthy childrearing habits, such as
keeping children in dark rooms and depriving them of vitamin D while
giving them the risk of suffering rickets and weak, poor skin.
She
said 20 percent of vitamin D in the body comes from meals and the
rest from sunlight. “We need to warn mothers of their child-care
measures. Many keep their children indoors during the first year,
especially the first three months. It’s not a good habit.”
Children
born in wealthier families meanwhile have the tendency to be
overweight, she said, adding that breast milk during early life helps
prevent obesity.
