PHM-Exch> IBFAN Statement on the Promotion and Use of Commercial Fortified Foods as Solutions for Child Malnutrition

[Claudio Schuftan]

International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN)
Red internacional de grupos pro alimentación infantil
Réseau international des groupes d’action pour l’alimentation infantile
1998 RECIPIENT OF THE RIGHT LIVELIHOOD AWARD


*International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) Statement on the Promotion
and Use of Commercial Fortified Foods as Solutions for Child Malnutrition
*
The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) recognizes that the
prevention and control of
child malnutrition worldwide, with particular focus on undernutrition in
developing countries,
constitutes a major challenge and is concerned that if left un-checked, this
poses an intolerable
burden of disease and death on poor communities and countries.
IBFAN believes that addressing child undernutrition, apart from being a
human rights imperative, is
essential to achieve Millennium Development Goals 1 and 4, and concurs with
United Nations’s
MDG Report 2011 that progress in the developing regions is insufficient to
reach the target by
2015.i

IBFAN is convinced that child malnutrition is the result of widespread
global social and economic
inequity,the marginalization of poor communities , as well as women’s
disempowerment and lack
of access to productive resources. It leads to lack of affordable health
care, inadequate support for
optimal infant and young child feeding practices, lack of sufficient water
for drinking and sanitation,
resulting in repeated bouts of diarrhoeal and respiratory disease and
chronic hunger and
malnutrition in children.

IBFAN is concerned that solutions for child malnutrition, both its
prevention and treatment, are
becoming increasingly medicalised with the use of fortified commercial foods
as “quick fixes” -
ignoring community based approaches and underlying and basic causative
factors.ii
The current emphasis on commercial ready-made foods as a treatment for acute
forms of
malnutrition, should not be used as a model ‘cure for all’.iii Experience
has shown that such
interventions are often not sustainable and ineffective in the long term.
For example, according to
a UNICEF report of 2009 “…Although significant progress has been made since
2005 in the
Niger’s ability to effectively treat severely acutely malnourished children
through the communitybased
approach, the prevalence of acute malnutrition remains high…”.iv

IBFAN is aware of research, which shows that the use of fortified commercial
foods leads to
weight gain in undernourished children. However, such studies do not compare
the efficacy of
such ready-made foods with improved feeding practices using home-made
indigenous foods and
support for optimal breastfeeding, whose contribution to nutrition is so
valuable.v Moreover, recent
concerns about use of these products and their impact on prevalence of
obesity and related
diseases must not be taken lightly.

IBFAN also believes that the current focus of attention on treating acute
forms of malnutrition with
ready-to-use therapeutic foods should not be used to extend similar
interventions to chronic
malnutrition. Since commercial fortified foods are costly, they increase
dependency on outside
agencies and shift the focus from community-based solutions, to treating
malnutrition as a disease
with ready made fortified food as the magic pill. Scaling up such “quick
fixes” will delay and divert
attention from action to achieve food security.

IBFAN strongly supports the right to adequate food for ALL and therefore
calls upon
governments, and all others concerned, globally and regionally:

1. To take immediate steps to prevent malnutrition through various measures
including the
enhancement of the rates of optimal breastfeeding infant and young child
feeding
practices, the provision of adequate drinking water, accessible health care
and child care
support systems that are free from inappropriate commercial influence.
2. To take meaningful steps towards resolving underlying factors of child
malnutrition in a
timely manner.
3. To take steps to eliminate poverty and hunger, by supporting sustainable
food systems that
that improve local food production, availability and affordability,include
women and gender
perspective in food security.
4. To implement the World Health Assembly resolution 63.23 to end
inappropriate promotion
of foods for infants and young children, including nutrition and health
claims.This should
also involve regulatory measures to ban the promotion of commercial
fortified foods for
malnutrition.
5. To take steps to ensure that the primary treatment of all types of acute
malnutrition is
based on local foods and supervised by a trained health professionals
without undue
commercial influence.
6. To re-evaluate the use of commercial ready-made foods in the prevention
and treatment of
child malnutrition in emergencies such as man-made and/or natural disasters
and to
advocate the use, wherever possible, of diverse indigenous /local foods.
7. To ensure that international, regional and local policies and plans of
action for the
prevention of child malnutrition are based on independent research and
include impact
evaluations.

August, 2011

Notes
i
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/(2011_E)%20MDG%20Report%202011_Book%20LR.pdf
ii Schaetzel T and Nyaku A. The Case for Preventing Malnutrition Through
Improved Infant Feeding and Management of Childhood
Illness: USAID’s Infant & young child nutrition project.
http://www.path.org/files/IYCN_the_case_prev_mal_pos.pdf This analysis
was originally presented as a poster at the 10th Commonwealth Association of
Paediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition
(CAPGAN) Congress on Diarrhoea & Malnutrition in Blantyre, Malawi in August
2009.
iii Jaffrey Sachs, Saying Nuts to Hunger:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/saying-nuts-to-hunger_b_706798.html
iv http://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_51688.html
v Breastfeeding in the second year of a child’s life can provide 29% of
energy requirements, 43% of protein, 75% of Vitamin A, 76%
of Folate, 94% of Vitamin B12 and 60% of Vitamin C. Dewey KG. Nutrition,
Growth, and Complementary Feeding of the Breastfed
Infant. Pediatric Clinics of North American. February 2001;48(1).

The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) is a 1998 Right
Livelihood Award recipient.
(www.ibfan.org) It consists of more than 200 public interest groups working
together around the
world to save lives of infants and young children and bring lasting change
in infant feeding
practices at all levels. IBFAN aims to promote the health and well-being of
infants and young
children and their mothers through protection, promotion and support of
optimal breastfeeding
and infant and young child feeding practices. IBFAN works for the universal
and full
implementation of International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitute
and subsequent
relevant World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions.
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