1st October, 2011 Poverty, lack of awareness and parents’ indifference was themajor causes of malnutrition among children, said UNICEF health and nutrition special list Dr. Abdul Jamil here on Saturday.

He was addressing a function organized by Prime Foundation to open a nutrition program in the Charsadda district.

The program for which Pakistan Islamic Medical Association, Al-Khidmat Foundation and UNICEF have collaborated with Prime Foundation is meant to reduce malnutrition and associated morbidity and mortality among children under five, and pregnant and lactating women.

Dr. Jamil, who was the chiefguest at the program inauguration ceremony, said there was a need for creation of public awareness of child nutrition.

He said proper and balanced diet promoted good health, while malnutrition was the root cause of all diseases.

The UNICEF official said balanced diet was the basic need for proper health, adding that food consumption among children decreased after attackby diseases.

He said curing diseases was also directly related to balance nutritional condition.

Dr. Abdul Jamil said first two years of newborn babies were of prime importance to curb problems related to malnutrition.

“Breast milk is a natural gift for a child. According to Islamic teaching, infants should be subjected to breastfeeding unto the age of two years,” he said.

The UNICEF specialist regretted that most women deprived infants of the first day of breast feeding and applied other recipes, adding that breast milk was a balanced diet for a newborn baby.

“The new born baby should not be deprived of the first feed, which contains precious nutrition and food,” he said.

Dr. Abdul Jamil said for successfully addressing malnutrition problem, proper research, scrutiny and survey was needed for targeting the problem areas.

“We need to approach parents and decision-makers to persuade them about the value and importance of infant health. Children are our true future and various other issues and problems are distracting to pay attention to them. The main concern should be to find out the rootcause of the problem,” he said.

The UNICEF specialist said the project would be used for further motivation and mobilization of community.

Dr. Abdul Aziz Zia, Relief Director, PIMA, said relief and welfare projects were the dire need of flood affected areas, especially Charsadda district.

Dr. Saeed Anwar, Director PSU, Prime Foundation, said the organization had planned the project after thorough surveying and time management of all relevant activities.

“Through a survey, 2000 cases of malnutrition were identified. Of them, 31 cases were of severe malnutrition. More than 1,500 pregnant women were approached as well as enrolled. This project is of six months short duration but carries a motive" and an efficient pace by the help of which weare expecting to avail major accomplishments in five months duration,” he said.

Dr. Anwar said the organization had highly trained and highly motivated workers, who were involved in identification and assessments of the target areas.

“We expect to expand our operational areas to other localities for which further inputs by PIMA, AL-Khidmat and Prime Foundation will be required".