Shared Responsibility For Common Good: Addressing Childhood Malnutrition In Australia

The Principles of Catholic Social Teaching and their Application

write a 1200 word paper that briefly critiques a global issue where shared responsibility for the common good is not being realised and then, propose ways to address this challenge.

According to the “shared responsibility for common good”, Catholic Social Teaching (CST), it is the right of every person to have adequate access to resources of the society in order to live an easy and fulfilling life (Felten, 2013). For sustainable utilization of resources, the personal possession and community resources must be optimally balanced with the disadvantaged and dispossessed. The common good is achieved when people residing in the society work in unison to improve the overall well-being of the mass (Felten, 2013).

Childhood malnutrition, a global burden provides a direct evidence of instances where the shared responsibility for common good is not being achieved (Ahmed, Hossain & Sanin, 2012). According to reports, in Australia, 44% of paediatric admission takes place due to the signs of malnutrition (Dengate, 2016). According to the National Rural Health Alliance Research Australia, the percentage is higher in the remote/regional areas of Australia and among the Australian’s aboriginals/ Torres Strait Islanders (Bourke et al., 2012). The increase prevalence in the rural or remote areas gives direct evidence that the act of “shared responsibility for common good” is not being achieved. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the majority of the Australians who lead a lavish life or reside above the poverty level fail to realise the crisis of accessibility of adequate fruits and vegetables in the rural areas of Australia (Bagshaw, 2016). Furthermore, UNICEF is of the opinion that there lies a significant widening gap between the children at the bottom and those at the middle (WHO Australia, 2013). Thus the resources of the society is not optimally balance, supply of fruits and vegetables are not scare, but high cost in the supply chain management and lack of buying power among the people in rural regions of Australia is the driving cause behind the increase in the incidence of childhood malnutrition (Fan, 2014). Malnourished children suffer from developmental difficulties which in turn affects their education (Freijer et al., 2013). According to the report published by UNICEF, Australian children who are suffering from malnutrition have poorer health and education outcomes WHO Australia, 2013). The Fairness for Children Report as published in The Sydney Morning Herald (2016) showed that Australia ranks 27^th out of 35 in the health equality outcomes and 24^th out of 37 in education equality outcomes. Thus these groups of children are deprived of fulfilling life, and the principle of shared responsibility for common good is bridged.

Childhood Malnutrition in Australia: A Failure of Shared Responsibility for Common Good

According to the CST, human dignity is something that can never be taken away. CST states that each person has their own values that are worthy of respect and they also have equal rights to be free from slavery, manipulation and exploitation. According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Government of Australia (2017), the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are seven times more vulnerable to substantiated reports of harm or risk of harm. Here harm signifies long hours of work (forced child labour), educational deprivation and lack of proper meal. Thus their right of human dignity is bridged. In order to overcome this condition, sustained commitment is required to be endorsed which covers all the five domains of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle: partnership, prevention, placement, participation and connection. Moreover, care should be given that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have equal control over the decisions that affect their children, thereby providing respect to their values and helping their to enjoy a life free of slavery. They must also be given a culturally safe environment to thrive where they get adequate access of food and opportunity of job (not forced labour) and are not compelled to send their children to earn livelihood for family.

Advocacy under CST signifies that in order to promote quality of life and dignity among the community, proper advocacy must be under taken on any prevailing issue that is disrupting the harmony of life and preventing any member of the community to enjoy the sustainable resources of life (Turner, 2012). In order prevent childhood malnutrition; child nutrition must be taken into priority. Prioritization of child malnutrition can only be achieved via renewing funding for child nutrition, such funding can come both from government sources or privately funded bodies. The funding must be optimally invested via providing quality nutrition to child like after school meal, summer meal along with higher reimbursement rates to school lunch providers (Alim et al., 2012). Other aspect of advocacy includes initiatives of multi-sectoral approach in order to promote accelerated action on the selective determinants of malnutrition among the target population. The multi-sectoral approach must include several schemes and programs that promote nutrition among the deprived children. Moreover, specific interventions must be advocated towards the vulnerable group of children like children who are below 5 years of age along with the promotion of maternal nutrition during the peri-natal and post-natal tenure (Bhutta et al., 2013). Moreover, advocacy must also be undertaken to fortify the essential foods with micro-nutrients like with salt, iodine and ion. Initiatives must be taken to popularise food which are low in cost and scores high on the nutritional content furthermore, strict control regime must be undertaken in order to eradicate or limit the micronutrient deficiencies among the vulnerable group of children population. Indirect advocacy must be taken in the grounds of food security like personalised approach to prevent wastage of food such that the vulnerable groups get opportunity to enjoy the sustainable resources (Miller & Welch, 2013). Improvement of dietary pattern via the promotion of the production of nutritionally rich food must be taken into consideration at the local level along with government and private level initiates towards improvement of economic balance among the vulnerable population (Gillespie et al., 2013).

Advocacy as a Means to Address Childhood Malnutrition

Community engagement or community participation is another important aspect of CST. According to this principle a life of a people apart from being sacred, also has a social approach. The pattern in which the society rules, political laws and economic principles are being organised, define the human rights and dignity. It also shapes up the capacity of individual to grown inside the community (Bernardo, Butcher & Howard, 2012). For children to grow in a healthy community, they must be given proper food. CST believe that it is the duty of the people to participate in society in order to seek common good and well-being for all, with a special mention to the vulnerable group of people. Such community based participation in order to promote common good among the vulnerable population must begin with the selection of appropriate volunteers among the community who are best-fit to promote child nutrition. This selection of the volunteer will be followed by community based management of malnutrition (Puett et al., 2012). Under this campaign, the caregivers will deliver treatment for the children who are suffering from severe malnutrition via ready-to-use-therapeutic foods along with routine medical care. Community volunteers must also take special initiatives for severely malnourished children who are suffering from medical complications or are devoid of appetite (Cederholm et al., 2015). Such highly vulnerable group of children must be referred to health care professionals or must be referred intensive care unit. Such community malnutrition model must be implemented in any area where at least 10% of the total population of children are moderately malnourished or are under-weight or under-developed (Tappenden et al., 2013).  Further improvement in the community model must be attained via community mobilisation and promotion of supplementary feeding programme, out-patient therapeutic programme and stabilisation in-patient care programme (Solheim et al., 2014).

References

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Bagshaw, E. (2016). UNICEF: Australian children are falling behind, health, education. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 18 January 2018, from https://www.smh.com.au/national/education/unicef-australian-children-are-falling-behind-in-health-education-20160414-go6li2.html

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Community Engagement: A Critical Aspect of Addressing Childhood Malnutrition

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Miller, D. D., & Welch, R. M. (2013). Food system strategies for preventing micronutrient malnutrition. Food Policy, 42, 115-128.

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