Nutrition Information and Education

The priority target group for this intervention is mothers of malnourished pre-school children (0
to 83 months of age). The goal is to increase the mothers' knowledge and improve their child-
feeding practices.
Health Protection
Health protection services are both curative and rehabilitative. Curative measures include
medical services to the moderately and severely undernourished pre-schoolers susceptible to
infection. Wards for recovery from malnutrition (malwards) are set up in hospitals or nutri-huts
in the remote areas. Immunization, deworming services, and sanitation campaigns are among the
preventive measures.
Food Assistance
As an emergency measure to improve the nutritional status of the moderately undernourished
pre-schoolers, supplementary feeding programmes are undertaken. Locally available food
commodities are encouraged and promoted.
Food Production
The primary goal of this intervention is to promote backyard and school gardens to increase
household consumption of more highly nutritious foods.
A village-level nutrition worker, called the "barangay nutrition scholar" (BNS) is the grass-roots
link between the families of malnourished children and the implementors from various
government agencies charged with carrying out the guidelines set forth at the national level. A
presidential decree in 1977 provided for the selection and training of one BNS in each of the
42,000 barangays in the country. The concept was to provide a community-based indigenous
worker to deliver basic nutrition and health services to the target families of the Philippine
Nutrition Program.
Nutri-Bus Project Background: The Pilot Study
Early in 1976 the Nutrition Center of the Philippines (NCP) decided to test the relative
effectiveness of different communication channels in bringing about behavioural change in
mothers' child-feeding practices. At that time the government was contemplating putting village-
level volunteers for nutrition (later called BNS) in the field, so it was decided to combine testing
of communication with volunteers to measure the relative effectiveness of various media in
support of the grass-roots worker. The behaviour selected for assessment in the pilot study was
the purchase of a nutritious product to add to the child's diet. The act of purchasing the product
would yield an objective and reliable measure of the behavioural change brought about by each
method of communication. The product itself would be designed to make up the nutritional
deficit for the pre-school child.
A product then under development at NCP was selected. This product, called "Nutri-Pak,"
provided:
a measure of behavioural change, through sales;
a nutritious supplementary food, supplying the child of 12 to 36 months with 50 percent
of his daily requirement for protein and 30 per cent of his daily requirement forcalories;
and
a communication medium (because it was packaged to show the user the correct types of
locally available foods needed for pre-schoolers and the relative amounts of these foods
required).
Nutri-Pak contained cracked rice, ground mung bean, coconut oil, and powdered milk. Each
ingredient was packed in its own small, clear plastic bag and these were overpacked to make one
Nutri-Pak. As part of the pilot project, a small manufacturing plant was set up to produce Nutri-
Pak.
(via http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80634e/80634E0d.htm)

The LAKASS Programme (Lalakas ang Katawang Sapat sa Sustansiya)
started in 1989 and is ongoing in selected areas throughout the Philippines. LAKASS
aims to: (a) improve the nutrition situation in all identified nutritionally depressed
municipalities; and (b) provide effective and sustainable services for the community to
improve their nutritional status.
Positive Deviance/Hearth (PDH): is a strategic community-based approach to reduce
malnutrition among children birth to 3 years. Mothers were taught to prepare healthy
snacks from locally available ingredients and children consumed the nutritious snack to
improve their health
Food Assistance Program: supplementary feeding for malnourished children as a short
term palliative intervention.
The MTPFNP/PPAN 1993-1998 aims to improve the nutritional status of Filipinos by
reducing the prevalence of protein-energy malnutrition. It also aims to prevent, control,
and eliminate micronutrient deficiencies.