Many baby food giants promote supplementary baby food, undermine breastfeeding and natural foods, says an NGO."Putting profits before children's health, baby food giants like
Nestle, Heinz and Abott woo mothers to give their supplementary food
through the label on the container and various websites from four months
which is unhealthy and unscientific as it can lead to health risks,
including diarrhoea," Arun Gupta, co-ordinator of the NGO, Breastfeeding
Promotion Network of India (BPNI), and member of the Prime Minister's
Council on India's Nutrition Challenges said. BPNI said Nestle Nutrition Institute is continuing to organise doctors' meetings despite objections from the government. Heinz asks new mothers to give cereal food "Oat and Apple" to more than
four-month baby through container label and various websites. Abbott claims brain development and promotes a product 'Similac advance
infant formula stage 1" for babies up to six months and "Similac infant
formula stage one" for zero to six months babies. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that artificial feeding is an
established risk factor for child's health, causing diarrhoea,
respiratory or newborn infections, allergies as well as obesity and
adult health diseases like diabetes and heart disease. "While attending a workshop during my pregnancy days on labour and
delivery organised by my hospital, I was surprised to see promotion of
baby feeding products. Such promotions, particularly through web and at
hospital settings, affect the choice of young parents and influence them
to adopt artificial feeding, harmful for babies," Institute of Home
Economics (Delhi University) assistant professor Yuki Azad said. "In a country like India where clean drinking water is not available, a
bottle-fed baby is more likely to die of diarrhoea and acute respiratory
infections than breastfeed babies. Why on earth government of India
should allow this?" asked Azad. BPNI also asked the government to strictly enforce the IMS Act (Infant
Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods Regulation of
Production, Supply and Distribution Act, 1992) and Amendment Act, 2003. "There should be 'zero tolerance' for misleading mothers in the interest
of children's health and survival and the government should ensure that
such violations end," BPNI national coordinator J.P. Dadhich said. The IMS Act bans all kinds of baby food and feeding bottle promotion,
including advertisements, inducements on sales, pecuniary benefits to
doctors or their associations, including sponsorship, commission to
salesmen, and prescribe labelling requirements for babies aged zero to
two years. "This is just the tip of the iceberg. It's high time that government
puts effective enforcement machinery in place to monitor and implement
IMS Act right at the district and state levels," Gupta said.
Source:IANS
Source:IANS
No comments:
Post a Comment