I read about a child. Five years old. Already on dialysis.
The reason: chronic kidney disease. And the contributing factor the report pointed to — hotdog, instant noodles, processed food. Every day. Since the child could eat solid food.
I stopped scrolling.
I've been writing about processed food, gut health, kidney health, and what we put in our bodies for years on this blog. I wrote about my own kidney stone in 2024. I wrote about how ultra-processed food is quietly making Filipinos sick. I wrote about my father who died of cardiac arrest after years of Type 2 diabetes.
But a five-year-old on dialysis. That one sat differently.
Because it means the problem isn't just reaching the adults who should know better. It's reaching children who don't even have a choice yet about what they eat.
This Is Not a Rare Story Anymore
I wish I could say this child's story is an isolated case. It isn't.
Experts estimate that there are at least 13 million Filipinos affected by various stages of CKD. Nephrologists from the National Kidney and Transplant Institute recently raised the alarm about the rise in young Filipinos undergoing dialysis — and even President Marcos expressed concern when he visited the NKTI.
Kyle Abanto was only 23 years old when his doctor told him he had stage 5 chronic kidney disease — end-stage, the kind that currently has no cure. He attributes it directly to years of eating whatever was convenient.
"Whichever is easy to eat, that's only what I consume. Instant products. All kinds of processed food," he said.
Dodie from Apayao was diagnosed with CKD at 15. Growing up, his diet was almost entirely junk food and softdrinks — sitsirya every morning and afternoon at school. He stopped drinking water.
"Hindi na po ako uminom ng tubig," he said.
The founder of Dialysis PH — a patient support group that has grown to 83,000 members in 2025 — described being shocked and heartbroken to find that many of their members were young Filipinos.
"When I was starting my dialysis sessions, I shared the beds with elderly patients. They were asleep most of the time. But recently, my dialysis-mates were all younger than me."
Among those members, he found children as young as 12 who had developed CKD due to poor eating habits. "Their parents did not know the harm that processed food could do to their children," he said.
And the Philippines, to be painfully clear about where we stand: we have the most number of deaths due to renal failure in all of Southeast Asia.
Why Processed Food Is So Hard to Avoid in the Philippines
I want to be honest here — not just alarming.
Because the honest answer to "why are Filipino children eating this way" is not simply: bad parenting. It's not stupidity. It's not carelessness.
It's poverty. It's convenience. It's the fact that a pack of instant noodles costs ₱10 to ₱12 and feeds a child for one meal. It's that hotdog with rice is faster than anything that requires real cooking time. It's that the sari-sari store on the corner is full of affordable, colorful, tasty things — and the vegetable stall requires more money, more preparation, and sometimes more cooking skill than an exhausted parent working a double shift can spare.
Ultra-processed food products have been linked to rising cases of non-communicable diseases including heart disease, kidney problems, diabetes, stroke, and hypertension. Despite being unhealthy, they are everywhere — cheap, toothsome, and never more than a sari-sari store away.
That's the trap. And it's designed to be inescapable for families who are already stretched thin.
I'm not excusing the problem. I'm saying it has roots that go deeper than individual choice — and any solution that ignores those roots isn't a real solution.
What Is CKD and Why Does It Hit Young People So Hard
Chronic Kidney Disease means the kidneys are progressively losing their ability to filter waste from the blood. It's a slow, largely silent disease — most people don't know they have it until significant damage has already been done.
The early stages have almost no symptoms. By the time symptoms appear — swelling in the legs and face, back pain, reduced urination, extreme fatigue — the kidneys are often already at stage 3 or 4 out of 5.
Stage 5 is end-stage. Dialysis or transplant. For the rest of your life.
For a child to reach that point, the damage had to have been building for years. The kidneys of a child on dialysis didn't fail overnight. They were quietly struggling while that child ate hotdog and noodles for breakfast, lunch, and merienda — because that's what was available, what was affordable, and what no one told them was slowly causing damage.
The sodium in instant noodles. The preservatives in processed meat. The phosphates in softdrinks. All of it puts load on the kidneys every single day. And young kidneys, unlike the rest of a growing body, don't get stronger from that kind of stress.
Americans Are Making the Adjustment. Are We?
I wrote earlier this year about how Americans are finally confronting their ultra-processed food culture — new dietary guidelines, food dye bans, a growing movement away from convenience food.
The Philippines is watching this from a distance and not moving fast enough.
We have the data. We have the patients. We have the children. What we don't have — yet — is the policy urgency that matches the scale of the problem.
Health advocates have been pushing for front-of-pack warning labels on processed food in the Philippines — mandatory, clear, visible symbols that tell a parent at a glance that the product they're about to buy for their child is high in sodium, sugar, or fat. This is already standard in Chile, Mexico, and Thailand. The Philippines has been discussing it for years.
Years. While children get younger in dialysis wards.
What We Can Do Right Now
I'm not a doctor. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm a government employee in Surigao City who walks 2 km home every day, drinks malunggay tea every morning, Buko juice (Coconut Water), and has been paying attention to food and health for years — partly because I lost my father to a disease connected to diet, and partly because I have my own health history that keeps me honest.
What I can offer is this:
Read the sodium. Instant noodles have more sodium per serving than most adults should consume in half a day. If your child eats two packs — which many do — that's the kidneys working overtime before 10 AM.
Water is not optional. Dodie stopped drinking water as a child and replaced it entirely with softdrinks. His kidneys paid the price. Water is how the kidneys flush waste. Without it, the system backs up.
Hotdog is not a food group. I say this gently because hotdog with rice is a Filipino childhood staple and I am not immune to nostalgia. But it is a once-in-a-while food, not a daily meal. The sodium and preservative load is not designed for bodies that eat it every day.
Cook when you can. Even simple. Tinola. Monggo. Pinakbet. Sinigang with real vegetables. These are not difficult or expensive. They are the food Filipino bodies were built on — and the food that actual Filipino kidneys can handle.
Talk to your children about food. Not in a frightening way. But in an honest way. A five-year-old doesn't know that the hotdog they love is hurting something inside them. A parent who knows has a responsibility to gently, consistently redirect — not with lectures but with better options when they're available.
Mavs' Final Diagnosis
A five-year-old on dialysis is not just a medical statistic. It is a failure — of food policy, of nutrition education, of the systems that allow harmful food to be the cheapest and most available option for the families who can least afford to get sick.
It is also a warning to every Filipino parent, every household, every lola who still has time to change what goes on the table.
We cannot control everything. Budgets are tight. Time is scarce. Life is hard.
But we can read labels. We can add water. We can cook tinola once a week instead of hotdog five times. We can tell our children what food does to their bodies — because nobody told Dodie, and nobody told Kyle, and nobody told the five-year-old child who is now spending hours attached to a machine that is doing the work their kidneys can no longer do.
They deserved to know sooner. Our children deserve to know now. 🙏
Disclaimer: This post is for general health awareness and is not medical advice. For kidney health concerns, consult a nephrologist or your family doctor.
Do you know someone — a child, a young adult — dealing with CKD? Has this changed how you think about what you feed your family? I'd like to hear your story in the comments.
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Source:
Inquirer — Young Filipinos with CKD: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2157336/more-young-pinoys-getting-chronic-kidney-disease-and-they-learn-too-late
Inquirer — Front of pack labels CKD: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2157839/patients-health-groups-seek-front-of-pack-food-labels-to-prevent-ckd
GMA News — KMJS Young Filipinos CKD: https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/healthandwellness/975743
PIA — Kidney protection young age: https://pia.gov.ph/news/health-experts-promote-kidney-protection-starting-at-young-age/
NIH/PMC — Ultra-processed food and CKD: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12073181/
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