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Height-wise, RI falls short of targets, experts say
The prevalence of children under five who are classified as short for their age revealed that Indonesia still has a long way to go before solving its child malnutrition problem, nutrition experts told the media Monday
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he prevalence of children under five who are classified as short for their age revealed that Indonesia still has a long way to go before solving its child malnutrition problem, nutrition experts told the media Monday.
As of 2007, the Health Ministry’s Basic Health Research Survey showed a seemingly happy picture of Indonesia’s success in tackling the first Millennium Development Goal: reducing the prevalence of underweight under-five children to 18 percent.
The previous data from the National Statistics Agency revealed that in 2000 the proportion of underweight children had been around 25 percent.
However, the same survey also revealed that 37 percent of under-five children showed signs of stunted growth. This means that one out of every three children in this age group is shorter than the standard height for their age.
In provinces such as East Nusa Tenggara, the rate of stunted growth, which is an indicator of chronic malnutrition, reached 47 percent.
Children suffering from stunted growth tend to enroll late in school and benefit less in education in general, the conference heard.
“This has only recently been discovered. So now we have to reduce the number of short children,
not only the underweight,” said Minarto, the chairman of the Indonesian Nutrition Experts Association (Persagi).
He was speaking on National Nutrition Day, to a meeting including the officials from the National Development Agency and the Health Ministry, as well as representatives from Unicef and other experts.
Minarto said the definition of children who suffered from stunting used standard criteria from the World Health Organization.
“For example, a six-month-old boy would not be categorized as short if he is more than 63.3-centimeters tall,” Minarto said.
So far the campaign against malnutrition had been targeted at reducing the number of underweight children, rather than focusing on the height factor, he said.
The meeting was a first step to improve coordination between agencies in the fight against malnutrition, the press conference heard.
Contrary to the idea that nutrition is exclusively the domain of the Health Ministry, the future campaign to tackle malnutrition will include the Agriculture Ministry, the National Education Ministry, and the Religious Affairs Ministry.
The National Mid-Term Development Plan signed last week by the President stated that the government is committed to reducing the prevalence of stunting among under-five children from 37 percent in 2007 to 32 percent in 2014.
The Health Ministry’s research also revealed that in 2007, 14 percent of children under five were classified as “wasting”, which means that they fell below the average weight to be expected for their height.
The data also showed the proportion of babies under six months who were fed exclusively with breast milk had declined from 63 percent in 1987 to 32 percent in 2007.
Poor nutrition was estimated to have had a significant negative effect upon the country’s economy, reducing the Indonesian Gross Domestic Product by between 3 and 4 percent or up to Rp 62 trillion each year.
