The press launch of the public health video, ‘The Importance of Good Nutrition in a Child’s First 1000 Days’ took place at UNOPS on 16th June in the presence of Dr May Khin Than, Director of the National Nutrition Centre for the Ministry of Health.

LIFT and its nutrition partner, the LEARN consortium produced the video in hand with the National Nutrition Centre to contribute to Myanmar’s efforts in the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement.

The video spells out the importance of good nutrition in a child’s first 1000 days, from conception through to its second birthday. 

Myanmar is listed as one of the world’s 36 high-burden countries for chronic malnutrition and stunting. The rate of child stunting among the poorest quintile of the population is nearly 50 per cent - or one in every two children. Under-nutrition during the first 1000 days of life is particularly dangerous as it limits a child’s future growth and development.

Steve Dowall, LIFT’s Lead Technical Officer, opened the event with information on LIFT’s work in nutrition.

Dr May Khin then discussed the progress that Myanmar has made in reducing child undernutrition.  She went on to highlight three simple steps that Myanmar citizens can take to improve their nutrition:

  1. Maintain a healthy and nutritious diet which includes the three basic food groups (body building, energy giving and protective foods).
  2. Ensure the diet is well balanced between the three food groups. In particular, limit consumption of rice and oil, and increase consumption of meat, fish, eggs, beans, pulses, milk and vegetables 
  3. Ensure proper food hygiene. In particular, it is important to clean vegetables and utensils thoroughly before consumption

Elizabeth Whelan, Programme Manager of LEARN and U Saw Eden, Deputy Programme Manager of LEARN introduced the video and audio versions of the '1000 days'  message.  They explained the importance of better nutrition in Myanmar, stressing that the video needs to reach a wide audience across the Myanmar, at all levels of society.

Watch the video here and please share it widely.

You can find Steve Dowall’s opening speech here, and Elizabeth Whelan’s presentation on the need for better nutrition in Myanmar here.

For more information, please contact hsumona@unops.org . There are DVDs of the video available for television broadcast, as well as an audio version for radio broadcast.