2017 Nutrition Symposium: 13% Nigerians risk mental deformation

NaijaAgroNet:

Estimated 13 per cent of Nigerian children risk growing up with mental deformity unless proper iodine is part of their nutrition, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Professor emeritus, Babatunde Oguntona, who gave this indication in Lagos at a one-day Nutrition Symposium on ‘Malnutrition,  Child Development and the Media’ organised by the Media Centre Against Child Malnutrition (MeCAM).

He also called on government to pay greater attention to public health.

“If we don't keep iodine level properly, we'll have 13% of Nigerian children mentally deformed,” Prof. Oguntona said.

Lamenting the situation, Prof. Oguntona imagineed that about 13 percent of parliamentarians are mentally deformed and wondered the kind of policies and legislation.

"Inadequate iodine in our food is a serious threat. You can't talk of development when you ignore the issue of nutrition status of your people,” he declared, rapping the Nigerian authorities for their poor response to the threats of malnutrition.

Oguntona, a former president of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, said between 13 and 18 Nigerian children die of malnutrition and related diseases every hour and called on the media to step up advocacy on the issue.

Ivy Ibiso KingHarry, an associate at the Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network | Global Alliance on Improved Nutrition (GAIN), said the media have a duty to promote messages on nutrition as influencers and change agents. 

She added however that such media efforts must flow from proper understanding of the science of nutrition and effective delivery of messages in language understood by common people.

She urged reporters to always fact-check and scrutinize official data on malnutrition, be consistent and build trust in their duty as gatekeepers.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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MeCAM hosts Nutrition Symposium’17 @Welcome Centre

NaijaAgroNet:

The Media Centre Against child Malnutrition (MeCAM) has declared that all is set to host its first-ever Nutrition Symposium scheduled to hold in Lagos on Friday, August 4 at Welcome Centre Hotels, this year, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The National Coordinator of Media Centre Against child Malnutrition (MeCAM), Mr. Remmy Nweke, said the theme would focus on "Malnutrition, child development and the media."

This, he said is coming as MeCAM is partnering with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Scale-up Nutrition Business Network (SBN), to enhance information sharing as far as nutrition in the country.

He also said that the partnership would benefit child development and the role of media, in a developing economy like Nigeria and beckoned on other stakeholders to emulate GAIN by partnering with MeCAM in this auspicious event.

Equally, Nweke who is  the Group Executive Editor, DigitalSENSE Africa that at the forthcoming Nutrition Symposium by MeCAM, would see to the leadership of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Scale-up Nutrition Business Network (SBN) taking discussion on “Communicating Nutrition Messages to Stakeholders: Role of the Media.”

The GAIN and SBN team, he confirmed, would be led by Country Team Lead at GAIN and coordinator of SBN Nigeria, Uduak Igbeka, and would dwell on the sub-theme with expertise and dispatch, alongside other experts with vast experiences on the subject matter.

Further, he quoted the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as recently declaring that estimated 12.9 per cent of the Nigeria’s 190m population has been projected to be among some 5 million undernourished people in the world today.

Nweke revealed that MeCAM is resolute to use this symposium to not just draw public attention to the threat that malnutrition poses to the future of the country, but to also correct the impression that this menace is restricted to the poor.

He emphasized that UNICEF had estimated, at least 2.5m Nigerian children suffer from acute malnutrition (SAM), thus posing the danger of many of them being at risk of death unless properly treated and of course with right information.

This situation, he said, represents clear and is dangerous to the socioeconomic wellbeing of the entire country.

MeCAM, he said, is peopled exclusively by journalists, and mediapreneurs to push the narratives to save the Nigerian child from the danger of malnutrition through scaling up reporting and advocacy, among others. 

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