Villar measure to control and prevent obesity

MANILA, Philippines — With around 27 million Filipinos considered overweight and obese, Sen. Cynthia Villar is pushing for a measure that would control and prevent obesity.

Villar filed Senate Bill 2230 or the act providing for the control and prevention of obesity, as over the last two decades the prevalence of obesity and being overweight among adults has almost doubled, increasing from 20.2 percent in 1998 to 36.6 percent in 2019.

“Alarmingly, obesity has also surfaced as a significant risk factor for severe disease during the COVID-19 pandemic, making individuals with obesity twice as likely to be hospitalized upon testing positive for COVID-19,” Villar said in her explanatory note.

“Obesity, traditionally perceived as a health concern primarily in high-income and developed countries, is now escalating in low and middle-income countries, including the Philippines,” she noted. 

Villar added that the Department of Science and Technology’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute reported that around 27 million Filipinos are overweight and obese. 

Concurrently, she noted that overweight and obesity rates among adolescents have more than doubled from 4.9 percent in 2003 to 11.6 percent in 2018. 

“If no proactive measures are undertaken, the overall rates of overweight and obesity are projected to continue rising, potentially resulting in over 30 percent of Filipino adolescents being overweight or obese by 2030, as stated in the ‘Landscape Analysis on Overweight and Obesity in Children, Philippines,’ ” she said.

Multiple reputable organizations including the Department of Health, National Nutrition Council, Philippine Association for the Study of Overweight and Obesity, Nutrition Center of the Philippines, World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) have collectively raised the alarm over the escalating obesity rates in the Philippines.

Malnutrition

Efforts by the national government to fight malnutrition and child stunting should be intensified in light of serious future threats to the workforce.

“Our country’s future workforce is at risk with the continued prevalence of malnutrition and child stunting. We need to address this issue urgently and seriously, and we need greater effort from all sectors if we are to make progress,” Rep. Fidel Nograles warned.

The chairman of the House of Representatives’ committee on labor and employment said these problems, which have been there for a long time, could have adverse effects on the country’s future workforce.

Nograles likewise urged local government units (LGUs) to ramp up their nutrition campaigns.

Meanwhile, House committee on ways and means chair Joey Salceda yesterday proposed that the revenues from sweetened beverages and new taxes on junk food be used to finance the Marcos administration’s food stamp program.

Salceda noted that the TRAIN law, which introduced the sweetened beverage taxes, sets aside 30 percent of its revenues to “social measures.”

These social measures, he said, include “very specifically, social mitigating measures and investments in: education, health, targeted nutrition and anti-hunger programs for mothers, infants and young children.”

“We were also not able to earmark programs for sugar farmers under the law. And we should have. That was part of the deal. So, I strongly suggest that if we are going to do this, let’s pilot it for poor sugar farmers,” noted Salceda.

He added if all the revenues will be earmarked for the program, “junk food taxes also stand a chance in Congress.” — Delon Porcalla, Sheila Crisostomo