The Network of Cities How We Go conducted the virtual survey ‘My voice my city’ to find out the perception of Colombian families about their health, family and economic conditions during the pandemic.
The survey, which included questions related to the nutritional status of early childhood, found that the diet of 15.5 percent of children under 5 years of age in the families surveyed in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Manizales has been insufficient or totally insufficient in the crisis period, while 65.4 said that the feeding of minors has been sufficient.
The lack of food was mitigated, according to 22.2 percent of families with children, because they received markets or economic aid during quarantines.
These results, added also to those of the survey “How are we doing”, put on the table that one of the concerns of the social effects of the crisis in the country is food security, especially of children.
The economic effect of the pandemic “may lead to reverse the trend of indicators such as acute malnutrition and mortality due to malnutrition in children under 5 years of age, whose behavior until 2019 was satisfactory,” says the report from Bogotá How We Are
According to the document, in 2019 chronic malnutrition in the country’s capital had a prevalence of 16.2 percent, 1.4 percentage points less than that indicator in 2018. However, the prevalence in the first quarter of this year it rose again and stood at 17.4 percent.
The report also calls attention to the possible increase that acute malnutrition may have, which registered a prevalence rate of 1.2 percent in 2019. And for a possible decline in deaths from malnutrition in children under 5 years of age, since none have been registered in the capital in the last three years.
According to a study published in The Lancet Global Health journal with estimates of the indirect effects of the pandemic on maternal and infant mortality in 118 low- and middle-income countries – including Colombia – there has been an increase of more than 38 percent since March in the mortality of mothers and more than 44 percent in that of children under 5 years of age as a consequence of the deterioration in their nutritional situation.
The data on the situation of early childhood are added to the results of the survey ‘Social pulse’, carried out by Dane between July and August, which drew attention, among other things, to the nutritional conditions of Colombians in recent years. months.
One of the conclusions of the survey was that last August only 67.7 percent of households with four or more people in 23 capitals of the country consumed an average of three meals a day.
That’s 22 percent less than those who could eat three times a day before the new coronavirus crisis started. Another of the survey findings was that of the total number of people who before quarantine ate three or more meals, 23 percent went to just two and 1.5 percent to just one.
And of the total of people who before quarantine consumed two meals, for 77 percent there was no change, 10 percent went to just one meal, while 13 percent went to three meals.
