Undernutrition remains a major health problem among children 0 to 5 years old in our country.

One of the targets aligned with the MDG is that by 2015 the prevalence of underweight for age should be reduced to 13.7% as compared to the baseline of 27.3% in 1990. Thus far, the government has observed a prevalence of undernourishment at 20.6% in 2008. For this reason, the government and the national nutrition council is stepping up its drive to eradicate food poverty and malnutrition through various programs. One of these programs is the Home, School, Community Food Production Program. The program looks at the malnutrition problem as caused by multiple factors and as such utilizes a more comprehensive approach to address the problem. In our country, malnutrition is primarily caused by infectious diseases and inadequate food intake. As a result of undernourishment, the physical and mental development of these children get impaired. The poor physical condition predisposes their child to recurring illnesses as it doesnt have the full physiological capacity to ght off infection. In our country, children under 5 years old are commonly aficted with respiratory tract infection and diarrhea. These conditions can easily be treated if children are well nourished. But because of malnutrition, children die as a result of these diseases. Moreover, their mental development is hampered because hungry children cannot focus on school work and lessons. In the children are forced to drop out from school because their parents think they cannot do well in school or they are tasked by their parents to help in augmenting the income of their family. This feeds on to the vicious cycle of unemployment and poverty. According to the FAO, one of the immediate causes of undernourishment is recurring infectious diseases or poor health. The health status of 0-5 year old children is signicantly inuenced by insufcient health services, limited access to health care, inadequate supply of potable water, prevalence of unhygienic practices and poor sanitation, and poor childrearing practices. These factors can be compressed to two key factors which is lack of knowledge/low educational attainment and lack of resources such as facilities, trainings, and money. The other immediate cause of malnutrition is inadequate food intake or food insecurity. According to a study conducted by the FNRI (2008), Filipinos tend to skip meals, reduce portion sizes, and sometimes doesnt eat a single meal the entire day because of scarcity. The inability of the head of the family to provide adequate amount of nutritious food is inuenced by average income of the household, family size, and insufcient food production. The factors related to the head of the family are key determinants of food security in the family. Families whose household heads are educated are not concerned with food shortage as they earn more than enough to provide the basic food needs of the family. On the other hand, household heads who works as a contractual employee such as construction workers and other minimum wage earners tend to suffer from food inadequacy. The amount required to provide basic food to a family of 5 is around PHP 6000.00 which is two thirds of the monthly income of a minimum wage earner. With other monthly expenses such as rent, utilities, transportation, and allowance of children, a construction worker wont be able to provide adequate food for his family. Another factor that compounds the problem of food insecurity is a large family size. According to the FNRI, food insecurity increases sharply when family size is 5 or higher. Lastly, insufciency in food production reduces the buying power of the peso, increases food ination and contributes to limited food availability for the family. Low local food production drives the prices of food commodities upward because of the laws of supply and demand.

In conclusion, malnutrition is a multidisciplinary problem and the problem tree helps us distinguish how these multiple factors come together to bring about undernourishment among children 0-5 years old. The solution to malnutrition should be an integrated multidisciplinary approach that will address lack of knowledge/low educational attainment, lack of resources, large family size, alternative sources of income, and insufcient food production. It is important to identify these determinants so that the Home, School, Community Food Production Program can be evaluated based on how the program addressed these factors.