“Recently we have carried out a nationwide survey of children’s growth and development. We found that the immunity of children has increased as against that of three years ago. In particular, the nutrition of children in rural areas is getting better,” said Jang Chol Hun, director of the Children’s Nutrition Research Institute under the Academy of Medical Sciences, adding that the children around the country are being supplied with nutritious foodstuffs following the establishment of the new childcare policy.

The Third Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held in June 2021 established it as a Party’s important decision to supply all the children across the country with dairy products and other nutritious foods at state expense. Scientific nutritional care of children was a key agenda item of the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK held the following year.

Accordingly, the previous nutritious foodstuff supply norms for children were reconsidered and new norms were adopted to meet the requirements of not only the world standards but the Korean people’s dietary practices and physical characteristics of children. Seen on the walls of every room of nurseries and kindergartens are the state-defined “daily nutritious foodstuff supply norms for nursery and kindergarten children by grammes.”

The new norms are applied to children from seven-month-olds to six-year-olds. Included in the norms are white rice, meat, fish, eggs, beans, milk (yogurt), vegetables, fruits, kelp powder, bone powder, bread and sweets.

The norms fully accord with WHO standards on children’s growth and development.

Most of the countries around the world have their own dietary guidelines on children’s nutritional care in consideration of its significant influence on their whole life and their future. But their norms are nothing but “recommendation.”

In contrast, the DPRK’s norms are quite different, because the nutritious foodstuffs are supplied under the state concern.

The foodstuffs are mandatorily supplied to all children without exception, at the expense of the state and on its own responsibility. To this end, more than 200 supply stations for nurseries and kindergartens across the country are daily sending nutritious foodstuffs to more than a million children.

It is General Secretary Kim Jong Un ’s intention that it should be the mode of advance and development of the Korean revolution to show more sincerity for children the worse the conditions become and take dynamic steps forward towards the future of communism on the strength of that love.

Jong Hwa Sun