Photo AME/Facebook

Governing Is Also About Food

PERU
Sunday, January 25, 2026, 00:00 (GMT + 9)

There are figures that should shake consciences and define national priorities. Today, more than 40% of Peruvian children under the age of three suffer from anemia.

Chronic child malnutrition affects more than 12% of children under five. In some Andean provinces, these percentages double. More than 14 million Peruvians live in moderate to severe food insecurity (skipping meals or going an entire day without eating).

We are not talking about a marginal phenomenon, but about a structural crisis that compromises the future of the country, and therefore we must not tire of exposing it.

Photo: AME/Facebool

Anemia and malnutrition are not minor health problems; they are factors that limit physical and cognitive development from the earliest years of life. The evidence is clear: a child with anemia has lower learning capacity, poorer school performance, and, in adulthood, lower productivity. When these conditions extend to millions of people, the damage goes beyond individual hardship and becomes a national tragedy, making full national development impossible.

Why does this reality persist in a country with abundant natural resources? The causes are well known, but insufficiently addressed. Poverty and limited access to nutritious food remain central determinants. Added to this is the historic deficit in safe water and basic sanitation, which causes recurrent infections and reduces the absorption of essential nutrients such as iron.

There are also persistent gaps in primary health care: inadequate breastfeeding practices, incomplete supplementation, and growth and development monitoring that fails to reach all children in a timely manner.

The problem is also on the plate. In large segments of the population, the daily diet is poor in iron and high-biological-value proteins. Diets dominated by low-nutritional-value carbohydrates prevail, due to lack of access, information, and coherent public policies. Food insecurity is not only about eating less, but about eating worse.

The consequences of this situation go beyond the short term. A country that fails to properly nourish its children compromises its human capital, its competitiveness, and its social cohesion. There will be no sustainable growth or real reduction of inequalities if we continue to raise generations with irreversible disadvantages from childhood.

The solution requires a comprehensive and sustained response. Universal basic sanitation, strengthening primary health care, real intersectoral coordination, and nutrition education are unavoidable pillars. But there is one element that Peru continues to inexplicably underuse: its fishing wealth.

Peru is a global fishing powerhouse. Fish is an accessible source of high-quality protein, iron, and essential micronutrients for child development. However, its domestic consumption remains insufficient and unequal. Countries such as Spain or Japan, with less fishing wealth than ours, have made fish a central component of their daily diets and now show better-nourished populations with greater longevity. The difference lies not in resources, but in decisions.

In a country that constantly debates growth, investment, and stability, it is unacceptable that we continue to postpone a decision as basic as feeding our people well. Fighting anemia and malnutrition is not an act of charity; it is a political choice.

Photo: courtesy Caretas Peru

Making fish consumption a pillar of the National Food Policy toward 2031 requires leadership, political will, and coherence, and is a concrete test of whether those who aspire to govern understand that there is no development without healthy human capital.

Peru is overdiagnosed; now it needs decisions. And this is one that no presidential candidate should evade.

Autor/fuente: Alfonso Miranda Eyzaguirre/Expreso

[email protected]
www.seafood.media

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