A Healthy Diet, A Productive Citizen
Most brain development happens in a child’s first two years. If a baby misses out on the right nutrition in those early years (or during the mother’s pregnancy), body and brain can’t develop properly. Often, the damage is irreversible. Stunted children are more vulnerable to illness and early death, and to a lifelong decreased mental capacity, productivity, and earning potential.
It’s a preventable tragedy: millions of Cambodians going hungry amid a sea of abundance, in a country with rich soil and bountiful rivers. But even highly productive rice farming communities are vulnerable to droughts and flooding; some farmers lose their fields to developers, or sell land to pay off debt when rice prices plummet.
Sometimes, malnutrition is a more hidden problem—enough calories consumed, but not the right kinds.
In the traditional Cambodian diet, rice is such a staple that the word “rice” is shorthand for food itself: When Khmers say we are hungry, we say, “Klean bai”—“hungry for rice.” Many rural families eat mostly rice and small river fish, and during the dry season, they may get no protein at all. And they often know very little about nutrition—or have no way to get a wide variety of nutrient-rich foods—which is why micronutrient deficiencies are so common in rural communities.
Education
Local governments and aid groups need to do a better job of getting the word out that the quality of nutrition is just as important as the quantity of food eaten—especially for children. This includes educating mothers about the importance of breastfeeding and of eating a nutrient-rich diet while pregnant and while nursing.
Education is little help if families are too exhausted to plant vegetables or have no money to buy them in the market. Two thousand riels per person—fifty cents a day—is all it would take for every family to afford enough fruit, vegetables, and proteins to consume a healthy diet and ensure their children a better start in life.
SWDC NUTRITION PROGRAM
At SWDC, we are determined that no one who passes through our gates will spend another day hungry. We fill the belly first. Then we turn to health care, education, and livelihood.
In 2007, we launched our nutrition program, to educate SWDC women about healthy eating—for themselves and their families. We offer our employees a daily lunch with high nutritional value and key micro- and macronutrients represented. Studies have shown that good nutrition improves productivity: workers have more energy and miss fewer days due to illness. And at SWDC, offering a free lunch saves our employees money and time.
We also provide children at our kindergarten with two healthy meals a day—breakfast and lunch. This ensures that they will eat a healthy enough diet for their bodies and minds to grow properly, even if they don’t receive adequate nutrition at home. Over the years, we’ve seen astonishing improvements in academic performance when children new to our center begin eating twice a day at school.
We buy all meat, fish, and produce locally and train our SWDC cooks how to prepare delicious, nutritious meals in our on-site outdoor kitchen.
When a person is hungry, nothing else matters. A starved weaver cannot work. A malnourished child cannot grown and learn. The body wastes, and the eyes dim. As does hope. For a very poor person, hunger is priority one, the one problem that must be addressed before any other.