Children excercise at Children’s Hospital 1 in HCM City (Photo: congly.vn) HCM City (VNA) - The municipal administration of HCM City aimsto keep the rate of overweight and obese children under five years at less than12 percent by 2020.
To achieve this, it will implement a strategy of increasing awareness ofharmful eating and drinking habits, and promote consumption of nutritiousmeals.
Other targets that the HCM City People’s Committee announced on August 19 includereducing the rate of obese students in the city from 41.4 percent in 2014 to 25percent by 2020. By the same year, it will also try to keep the number ofadults suffering from diabetes to less than 12 percent.
Do Thi Ngoc Diep, Director of the HCM City Nutrition Centre, said that the rateof people aged 30 to 69 suffering from diabetes was 11.4 percent in 2015.
The city will create favourable conditions for society as a whole to helpimplement the strategy and achieve its targets. It estimates that it will spendmore than 44 billion VND (1.9 million USD) on implementing the strategy toimprove consumption of nutritious meals and reduce obesity and obesity-relatedcomplications.
It will call for investment from the private sector and close cooperationbetween many relevant agencies in order to raise funds and pool humanresources.
Nguyen Thi Thu, vice chairwoman of the city People’s Committee, has askedmunicipal Health Department and relevant agencies to disseminate properinformation on nutrition among residents, stressing in particular the need forchildren to eat well.
She said education on nutrition as well as provision of healthy meals will bestrengthened in city schools.
Diep noted that the city’s 2011-2015 nutrition strategy had seen the averageheight of male students increase by 0.6 – 1.4 centimetres over 2009; and thatof female students by 0.4- 3.9 centimetres.
The rate of malnourished and stunted primary school students dropped from 3.5percent in 2009 to 2.3 percent in 2014; from 6.6 percent to 3.8 percent amongsecondary students; and from 10.7 percent in 2009 to 7.8 percent in 2014 amonghigh school students.-VNA
