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The strategy sets goals to improve the food quantity-quality-hygiene and slash the rates of obesity, low weight and stunted growth among children under 5 years old by 2020.

The aim is to cut the number of underweight children (under 250gram) down to 10% by 2015 and to 8% by 2020.

The obesity rate would drop under 5% and 10% in rural and urban areas, by 2020 and the number of children with stunted growth, under 25% by 2015 and 20% by 2020.

Solutions would include the development and deployment of nutrition programs among kindergarten schools, and acceleration of food production-processing-consumption available at local levels, the strategy says.

Việt Nam is now facing burdens on malnutrition and obesity, which are still at high rates, said an expert at a seminar on nutrition in Hồ Chí Minh City last year.

According to Doc. Lê Thị Hợp, Director of the National Institute of Nutrition, the number of underweight children decreased considerably to under 20% but the rate of children with stunted growth remained high at over 30% of the total.

At present, there are about 2.5 million children with below-average height, mainly in the Central Highlands, the north central and the northwest region, she added.

By Thùy Dung