Malnourished children in Davao classified under “wasting” status increased in 2025

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 30 July) — Malnourished children in the city considered under “wasting” status—said to be the “the most … visible and life-threatening form of malnutrition”— has slightly increased this year, according to data from the City Health Office’s Nutrition Division.

Feeding program among school children. MindaNews file photo by ROEL N. CATOTO

Although the CHO’s “Operation Timbang” for 2025 is still ongoing, initial reports show that from January to May, 927 children under five years of age are classified as “wasting,” data presented to MindaNews by the Nutrition Division on Thursday show. That’s 0.65% of the 142,863 children weighed so far. (The CHO is projecting a total of 185,799 children to be covered in “Operation Timbang” in 2025.)

In 2024, “wasting” was at 0.62%, or 896 children out of the 145,415 covered in “Operation Timbang.”

Data from 2023, however, show that “wasting” was much lower then, only at 32%—537 out of the 167,496 children under 5.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), “wasting is the most immediate, visible and life-threatening form of malnutrition…. Children with wasting are too thin and their immune systems are weak, leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death.”

Elizabeth B. Banzon, head of the CHO’s Nutrition Division, said in an interview during the culminating program of the city government’s Nutrition Month celebration at SM Ecoland on Tuesday that they continue to enforce programs such as “Gulayan sa barangay at paaralan” and feeding activities to help combat malnutrition.

She said that feeding programs continue to be provided in schools, and the CHO has encouraged the people to plant vegetables to help achieve food security. The Nutrition Division, in collaboration with the City Agriculture Office, handed out seeds after the culminating activity, Banzon said.

According to Banzon, the establishment of Barangay Nutrition Councils (BNC) in Davao City has made their efforts to combat malnutrition to grassroots areas possible.

She added that the CHO-Nutrition Division presents their data to the barangay councils on their respective status on nutrition and the reports of “Operation Timbang.”

Upon presenting them the data, they then help each other in creating a strategy to combat malnutrition, Banzon said.

Lorna G. Carreon, president of the city’s Barangay Nutrition Scholar Federation, said that cases of malnutrition in the barangays are immediately reported to the nutrition officers to be validated and given intervention, like providing them with a package called “ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF).

RUTF—“an energy dense, micronutrient paste made using peanuts, sugar, milk powder, oil, vitamins and minerals that has helped treat millions of children threatened by severe wasting—is being pushed by UNICEF.

Carreon lamented that there are parents who are not cooperative in the campaign against malnutrition. Some, she added, refuse immunization and intake of Vitamin A, non-participation in “Operation Timbang,” and refuse to give their children anti-hookworm tablets. (Razl EJ Teman / MindaNews)