The overweight and obese rate among children under five years old in HoChi Minh City has increased threefold over the past decade, posing majornutritional and health challenges to the southern city, heard aconference on child nutrition on August 1.

The event was attended by nearly 300 nutritional and paediatric experts from Vietnam, Japan, Australia and Canada.

Reportsat the conference said there is a growing trend of obesity in childrenacross Vietnam, particularly in big municipalities like HCM City.

Theoverweight and obese rate among under-five children in the city jumpedfrom 3.7 percent in 2000 to 11.5 percent in 2013. Among school children,the rate also almost doubled from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 21.9 percentin 2009.

Experts attributed such nutritional disorders to anunbalanced diet which provides too much protein and fat but littleminerals and vitamins. Added to that, children in city nowadays do nothave many opportunities to get involved in physical activities.

Participantsagreed that communication activities to raise public awareness aboutthe issue are a key measure to address the problem. They also called formore investment in efforts to implement the school nutrition programmeand the national nutrition strategy.

At the same time, it was reported that children’s malnutrition in HCM City has reduced significantly.

Theunderweight rate among children under five declined from nearly 50percent in the early 90s to 4.1 percent in 2013, much lower than thenational rate of 15.3 percent.

The rate of stunted growth alsodropped from over 50 percent in 1990 to 6.7 percent last year –equivalent to the figure in developed countries, while the national ratewas 25.9 percent.-VNA