When ‘future’ starves

Tuesday 27th September, 2022

Doctors have expressed serious concern about an increase in the prevalence of malnutrition among children, and called for remedial action. Their call should be heeded. But some medical professionals who curry favour with the government have sought to pooh-pooh the reports that child malnutrition is on the rise. Claiming that the issue has been blown out of proportion, they have even found fault with the use of internationally accepted yardsticks anent children’s weight, height, etc., in determining the levels of undernutrition and malnutrition here. Commenting on the much-publicised issue of a poor girl bringing coconut kernel to school for lunch, a pro-government doctor has extolled the nutritional properties and health benefits of coconut meat! He went on to say that there was nothing wrong in eating fresh coconut kernel, and, in fact, it was very nutritious and children should be encouraged to consume it! This is what Sri Lankans call a yanne-koheda-malle-pol answer; it was totally irrelevant. The issue is not whether coconut kernel is nutritious but whether it can be used as a substitute for lunch over a period of time. If so, why don’t the doctors defending the government give their children coconut kernel instead of balanced meals? Do they ask their children to take coconut meat to school?

It is unfortunate that some medical practitioners allow their political views to colour their professional opinions on issues of national importance, and have failed to be from the political riff-raff.

There has been a rapid deterioration of nutritional status in this country over the past couple of years, as is known to most Sri Lankans, especially the poor parents struggling to keep the wolf from the door. When inflation soars, people have to reduce food consumption, and nutrition disorders become inevitable. Sri Lanka is among the first five countries with the highest food inflation rates in the world.

Hunger however is not a problem confined to Sri Lanka or the developing world for that matter. It has manifested itself even in some developed countries. An article, Schools in England warn of crisis of ‘heartbreaking’ rise in hungry children, in The Guardian (UK) of 25 Sept., makes a shocking revelation. Quoting headteachers from across England, it says, ‘Children are so hungry that they are eating rubbers or hiding in the playground because they can’t afford lunch …. One school in Lewisham, south-east London, told the charity about a child who was ‘pretending to eat out of an empty lunchbox because they did not qualify for free school meals and did not want their friends to know there was no food at home.” The article also quotes Naomi Duncan, the Chief Executive of a charity called ‘Chefs in Schools’, as having said, “Kids are coming in having not eaten anything since lunch the day before. The government has to do something.”

It is hoped that the ruling party politicians and their apologists here will not claim that Sri Lanka is ahead of England as regards child nutrition because in that country children eat rubbers in school but their Sri Lankan counterparts have at least coconut kernel. Given the severity of hunger among schoolchildren in England, it is not difficult to imagine how bad the situation in this country is.

What is reported from England is certainly bad news for Sri Lanka, which is dependent on the munificence of the developed nations such as the UK for food aid. When the rich nations face a food crisis and their children starve, they will be compelled to curtail funds for international aid. Hence the need for the government of Sri Lanka to stop relying entirely on other countries for food aid, and do everything in its power to meet the problem head on lest the situation should worsen. It has to pull out all the stops to increase national food production, and prevent food waste while eliminating wasteful expenditure and channelling funds so saved to children’s welfare programmes.

Children are called the future of the nation, and rightly so, and it is incumbent upon the government to ensure that they do not starve.