Updates on Child Nutrition and Health Seminar (Part 3)

This is the continuation of a previous blogpost.

2. 2nd speaker - Prof. Dr. Khor Geok Lin (Dept. of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UPM) on "Socioeconomic Disparities in Childhood Malnutrition". Prof. Dr. Khor shared about statistics of child hunger, malnutrition, underweight, mortality (death), and obesity. Here are some interesting statistical facts:

• Where child hunger in Asia is concerned, Bangladesh tops the list and surprisingly, Malaysia has the lowest (but Mommy didn't see Singapore in the list at all!).
• Three-fourth of the world's underweight and stunted children in the world actually live in Asia. Being underweight is a high risk for young children. South-east Asia has the highest prevalence of underweight children below 5 years old, and Latin America and Caribbean Islands has the lowest. Within South-east Asia itself, Malaysia has the lowest prevalence of underweight children and Timor Leste the highest.
• In terms of child death before the age of 5 years (in Asia), Singapore has the lowest and Myanmar the highest. China and Malaysia have low prevalence.
• Rural children are twice as likely as urban children to be underweight. In Malaysia, among children below 18 years old, the prevalence of underweight is lowest in both Penang and Selangor (in fact, much lower than the national average), and Sabah is the highest (in fact, much higher than the national average).
• As for the prevalence of overweight children below 18 years old in Malaysia, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka are among the highest and Sabah is the lowest.
• It is found that child obesity is more prevalent among the lower socioeconomic group.
• Adequate nutrition before and during pregnancy and the first 6 months of life is critical to a child.
• Among the determinants to reduce child malnutrition, women's education actually contributes the most.
• Prof. Dr. Khor also brought up the issue of health inequality in the Internet. She pointed out the trend that health websites are mostly written at a level understandable to high school up to graduate level readers. Thus, the lower level group is at the most disadvantaged in accessing health information from such websites.

Stay tuned for the gist of the next speakers.

Updates on Child Nutrition and Health Seminar (Part 2)

Remember how Mommy mentioned about registering to attend a seminar on updates on child health and nutrition in UPM? Well, Mommy attended this seminar on 10th November 2009 and would like to share some interesting information with fellow parent bloggers. But first, before Mommy goes into the hard facts of the seminar, let's see some photos taken that day:

(The Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, where the seminar was held.)

(A bunting of the seminar. See the tables and chairs with skirting in the background? That's for the tea breaks and lunch provided for free during the seminar!)


(The official opening ceremony of the seminar.)




(Associate Professor Dr. Pantipa Chatchatee from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, conducting her opening address on "Child Nutrition and Immunity".)




(Here are the 'goodies' in the seminar bag given out to participants: EnfaMama, EnfaGrow and EnfaKid free sample sachets, a Mead Johnson ballpen and seminar tag.)




(The seminar materials that were also included in the seminar bag: clockwise from top left - Sustagen cardboard folder, fullscap paper for jotting down notes, leaflets on EnfaGrow and Sustagen, and the seminar programme and abstract book.)




(And finally after finishing the seminar, Mommy received a certificate of participation!)

OK, here are the things Mommy wants to share with fellow parent bloggers/readers and of course, Mommy tries to minimize the usage of scientific terms for the benefit of the general audience:

1. 1st speaker - Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pantipa Chatchatee (Head Division of Allergy & Immunology, Dept. of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand) on "Child Nutrition and Immunity". Dr. Pantipa shared about how nutrition can affect child's immune system in many ways and that the interrelationship between nutrition, immune functions and inflammation can be targeted for health promotion and disease prevention. Some interesting points mentioned during her talk:

• Imbalance in fatty acids may drive certain immune cells towards the inflammatory direction, so you will see more allergic reactions.
• When mom consumes fish oil regularly during pregnancy, the baby will have less allergy problems because more DHA equals to less inflammation, BUT excessive DHA can disturb the blood clotting process, more so during childbirth.
• The function of immunity is not only to fight against foreign matters, but also to tolerate foreign matters found in food, self, environmental components and other bacteria living together in our body. It is the imbalance between fighting and tolerating that causes allergic and inflammatory problems. The T-regulatory cells are the ones in charge of controlling this balance. The development of tolerance actually starts prenatally.
• You are what you eat! Immunity starts from the gut! Dr. Pantipa cited one experiment done on newborn mouse. The newborn mouse was subjected to sterile environment since birth, that is, sterile food, sterile water, sterile living condition and the likes. Of course, the baby mouse grew up and then scientist started exposing it to normal living conditions and the mouse got sick easily. So the lesson learnt is that you need some 'dirty' living conditions and exposure to germs so that your immune system gets the necessary 'practice' or stimulation to fend off infections.
• Dr. Pantipa also mentioned about the increasing prevalence of allergy in nowadays society. The issues that she highlighted were: (1) Is our environment becoming more toxic? (2) Or is the population becoming more and more susceptible?

Mommy will have to stop here now because Mommy will need to go fetch Juan Or back from the babysitter's house. So stay tuned for more posts after this where Mommy will share the main points picked out from subsequent speakers (there were 10 speakers in all).

A Seminar on Child Nutrition and Health

Mommy got this interesting announcement from a colleague yesterday. She got the invitation to this talk because she is in the field of Health and Nutrition (she is one of the lecturers in the Food Science and Nutrition programme). According to her (and the invitation card), this talk is free-of-charge and anybody can attend it. And the topics sound very interesting to Mommy. Here are the details:

Theme: Updates on Child Nutrition and Health

Date: 10th November 2009

Venue: Main Lecture Hall, Dewan Kuliah Utama, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University Putra Malaysia.

Time: 8.30 am - 5.30 pm

Deadline to RSVP: 30th October 2009

Who to RSVP to: Chin Yit Siew (chinys@medic.upm.edu.my)

Yap Su Ling (suling.yap@mjn.com)

Organizers: UPM and Mead Johnson Nutrition

Topics that will be covered:

• Child Nutrition and Immunity


• Socioeconomic Disparities in Childhood Malnutrition


• Parental Feeding Practices and Nutritional Status - What Do We Know?


• Micronutrients and Cognitive Development in Young Children


• Fatty Acids and Children's Health


• WHO Growth Standards 2006: What Does It Measure?


• Assessing Physical Activity of Children: What's New?


• A Practical Approach in Managing Childhoon Obesity


• Cow Milk Protein Allergy: A Clinician's Perspective


• Nutrition Interventions for Young Children: The Way Forward

By the way, Mommy only RSVPed on 2nd November 2009, which is already past the RSVP deadline, but luckily they still accepted because Mommy received a confirmation email from Ms. Yap Su Ling. So if you are interested to attend, you can still try to RSVP.