Food insecurity affects almost 5.5 million children up to 4 years old

Brazil has 18.1 million children aged between 0 and 6 years old, the so-called Early Childhood. Of these, more than half – 10 million – live in low-income families.

Three out of four of these families are headed by single mothers.

Furthermore, 46% of families with children at this stage live without access to a sewage system.

This precarious situation is directly reflected in another indicator: hunger. Every day, 5.4 million children under the age of four live with some degree of food insecurity.

The data is part of a survey by the Maria Cecília Souto Vidigal Foundation, based on figures from the IBGE and the Ministry of Development, Social Assistance, Family and Fight Against Hunger.

“If there is hunger, there is no point in talking about health and education,” says Mariana Luz, CEO of the Foundation, which focuses on Early Childhood issues in Brazil. Mariana is one of the new appointees appointed by President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva to the Council for Sustainable Social Economic Development, the so-called Conselhão.

On that occasion, Lula signed the decree to establish the National Integrated Policy for Early Childhood. Although it was provided for in the Legal Framework for Early Childhood, which dates back to 2016, the National Policy had not yet been implemented. After the decree was signed, which took place at the end of June, a committee must be created that has up to 120 days to present proposals for implementing this policy.

“I hope it will be less than 120. I think we can do it in two months, because we need to have this information so that the work can start, in practice, reaching the children,” said Mariana in an interview with CNN Brazil . According to her, Brazil currently invests six times more in the elderly than it does in children and adolescents, while the general average in other countries is twice as much. Mariana makes a point of reiterating that this is not a dispute between stages of life. For her, however, it is important to make people aware that healthy aging begins early in life.

There are now several studies that link a healthy and fulfilling childhood to better levels of learning that have an impact throughout adult life. Nobel Prize winner in Economics James Heckman conducted a study that shows that for every dollar invested in Early Childhood, society receives a $7 return, considering factors such as reduced spending on health or crime, for example.

Experts consider this phase to be extremely important because by the end of this period the child will have established 90% of his/her neural connections. At no other time in life is brain activity so intense. Factors such as hunger, illness, lack of necessary stimuli or violence have a direct impact on this formation.

The Human Capital Index, created by the World Bank to raise awareness of the importance of investing in people’s development, showed in its most recent edition that, under current conditions in Brazil, if nothing is changed, a child born in 2019 will have reached only 60% of their potential human capital by the time they turn 18.

For Mariana Luz, changing this scenario is exactly the goal of the National Policy. “This is a missing piece in the national Early Childhood agenda. All this evidence that has been solidified regarding the importance of the first years of life in breaking poverty, breaking inequalities, and us looking in a structured way at Brazil’s challenges in the fields of education, health, assistance, economy, and protection and justice have to do with this integrated action”.

Initially, the committee to be created will be composed of members of the Civil House, 14 other ministries, and civil society.

According to Mariana, the Civil Couple plays its role well here, monitoring, coordinating and articulating, not only between sectors such as health, education, social assistance, security, among others, but also between the spheres of government – ​​federal, state and municipal.

“What this policy does is coordinate sectoral actions in Early Childhood. And this needs to happen in the different Federative Units. There cannot be a national vaccination policy that only focuses on health. Because children will be served by education and social assistance. They need these services to reach them in an integrated and connected way, because otherwise they will be thrown from one side to the other and often inefficiently.”