NO QUICK-FIX SOLUTION - Don't use packaged food to fight malnutrition: Govt

The women and child development ministry has written to all states and UTs that there isn't

enough evidence to support the use of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic foods (RUTF) for the

management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM). This is a blow to the multi-crore complex

of international NGOs, who push packaged food as a strategy to address severe malnutrition

and firms that produce them.

The WCD letter pointed to the concern that “use of RUTF may replace nutritional best

practices and family foods that children should normally be eating“. It said this could impact

negatively on continued breastfeeding in children older than six months and undermine the

importance of providing nutritional counselling.

The letter referred to the health ministry's February 2009 letter that categorically stated that

the use of RUTF for management of malnutrition is not an accepted policy of the government

and that its instructions in this respect should be “strictly complied with“. Recently,

responding to public health activists and paediatricians protesting against the promotion of

commercially produced RUTF for treating SAM, the health ministry had stated that it was

only “temporarily helpful for nutritional rehabilitation“ and not of benefit to “a common

household in developing appropriate food habits for children as against home augmented

food“. The health ministry added that based on these findings of the SAM alliance

constituted by the government, which includes the department of biotechnology and ICMR, it

had concluded that what was required was a “comprehensive family-centric approach

involving care-givers instead of a food centric approach“.

Published studies set in India repeatedly showed that RUTF, which showed remarkable

results in treating children with SAM in Africa, has proved much less effective in trials here.

This had prompted paediatricians and nutritionists to write a letter to the PM cautioning

against “quick fixes“ of buying commercial products instead of focusing on sustainable

measures such as care support for mothers, clean drinking water and food security .

International organisations pushing RUTF as a strategy include Unicef and the Global

Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), whose donors include governments of countries

such as the US, UK, Canada and France and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations. GAIN

also has alliances with food MNCs. These organisations have funded pilot projects and

persuaded states to use pre-packaged energydense pastes to fight SAM.

Source : The Times of India