VIETNAM: Striving to achieve height – the government is launching a campaign to improve diets in a bid to increase peoples height
HANOI, 24 April 2009 (IRIN): When it comes to reducing poverty and eradicating hunger, few other countries have made the kind of dramatic gains that Vietnam has.
Not only have income levels doubled every few years since 1990, but Vietnam is now a major food exporter. So in a country that is rapidly rising out of poverty why are one third of Vietnamese children malnourished?
In some areas, particularly in the mountainous regions where large numbers of ethnic minorities live, poverty is still to blame. But government health officials say that even in wealthier urban areas, poor eating habits, ignorance and a failure to cook nutritious food are the main culprits.
– Now parents are richer, but it does not mean they know how to feed their children in the right way, said Truong Hong Son, secretary of the National Programme on Malnutrition.
Parents have good intentions but the typical Vietnamese diet is heavy in rice, which does not provide the vitamins and protein that children need.
– Traditional meals in Vietnam only meet 60 percent of nutrition demands of school-age children, said Le Nguyen Bao Khanh, who heads the School and Work Department at the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN).
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