Children's nutritional needs are too costly

One third of South African children have low levels of vitamin A in the blood, a quarter suffer from malnutrition-related stunted growth, one in 10 are deficient in iron and one in eight are underweight.

But there is little that parents on low to middle incomes can do to rectify their children's nutrition problems.

To provide a completely healthy and balanced diet to three children aged 15, 10 and six years is costly, at current prices, almost R800 a month.This is equivalent to the entire monthly wage of some domestic workers and  66 percent of the official minimum wage.

A survey by Professor Johan Potgieter of Port Elizabeth shows that keeping children healthy is expensive. He estimates that one to three-year-olds cost R162 per month, four to six-year-olds R213 monthly while seven to 10-year-olds will cost parents R246 every four weeks.

The price of keeping a child healthy rises with their age.( Source : The Mercury, 15 October 2002)