Ready to use packaged foods will alter child feeding patterns: Experts

(Published on 2009)

C Shivakumar

Colombo:

If lobbying efforts by the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to the UN Secretary General High Level Task Force on Global Food Security succeed, over the next five years, young child feeding patterns will dramatically change from natural foods to ready-to-use packaged foods, warn international nutrition experts.

Ready to use therapeutic foods (RUTF) or ready to use food (RUF) are a new threat to breastfeeding, said nutrition expert Michael Latham during the four-day OneAsia Forum in Colombo that concluded on Saturday evening.

“It will distort family feeding, local agriculture, use of indigenous foods and cultural practices,” says Latham, also a professor of International nutrition in Cornell University and winner of Unicef lifetime achievement award for his works on nutrition.

 “Ready to use therapeutic foods or Plumpy’Nut may be effective in treating malnutrition but is it the right choice. With the global agencies now planning to promote RUTF to treat malnourished children in the age-group between six to 24 months, this is a major cause of concern,” he said.

The American professor said inequity is major cause for malnutrition. “Inequity in incomes, education, healthcare are major cause of hunger and malnutrition. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer due to globalisation,” he warned.

Dr Vandana Prasad  of Public Health Resource Network, India, said comprehensive strategies are required to tackle malnutrition. Since community ownership is critical to success, local food should be used to produce RUTF using decentralised processes and appropriate technologies.

She said food and medicine should not be confused with each other. “Even ready to use therapeutic foods or ready to use food are just foods, and the fact they are commercial foods should not raise their status higher than any other food. Their potential to change the way that poor children eat make them an undesirable option. It also raises a serious question of the food sovereignty,” she added.

Prof Q K Talukdar chairman of Centre for Woman and Child Health in Dhaka, Bangladesh, said “We had a recent meeting with Unicef, who sought to import ready to use therapuetic food in our country. We rejected their demand. RUTF in the long run will be damaging for child’s health. It is an alien product, expensive and unnecessary. If we can provide, proper infant and young child practices which include breastfeeding and home-based locally available diversified complementary food, children will not be undernourished,’ said Talukdar.

Prof Narada Warnasooriya of Sri Lanka highlighted the plight of IDPs in Sri Lankan camps and said there has been a rise in malnutrition in the camps. The government has taken measures to curb it. “Malnutrition is about gross social inequity and social injustice where the intervention has been inadequate,” he said.

Most of the delegates in the forum felt nations must first put in place preventive health and nutrition policies and they should resist commercial interventions in the name of addressing problems of child nutrition.

More than 60 delegates from 16 countries participated in the forum. A book on “IYCF Programme Review: Case Study on Sri Lanka’ was released during the event by Phillipe Daumelle, country representative of Unicef, Sri Lanka. Also present were World health Organisation country representative Dr F Rustom Mehta, Sri Lanka minister of Healthcare and Nutrition Siripala De Silva and Sarvodaya president Dr Sujatha Wijethilaka.

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What is Plumpy’Nut or ready to use therapeutic food?

A high protein and energy and high energy peanut based paste like foil packed ready to use therapeutic food. Each 92 grams of sachet provide 500 kilo calories of nutrition. Four UN agencies including WHO and UNICEF recommended its use without critical appraisal principles of Evidence Informed Public Health (EIPH), which acknowledges many factors, beyond simply the evidence, that influence decision making.

Country of origin: France (formulated by French scientist Andre Briend in 1999)

Where it is being used?

It is mostly used in Africa. This year Indian government stopped Unicef from distributing Plumpy’Nut but there has already been a call to produce Indian version of Plumpy’Nut. The product has started to be used in Bangladesh and Sri Lankan refugee camps and is about to be introduced in Nepal and Pakistan.