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group of students from SD 3 Sedayu state elementary school in Yogyakarta stood in front of their peers in Jakarta recently holding posters containing messages about healthy food.

'€œStop eating unhealthy snacks!'€ yelled one student while she lifted a poster above her head at SD 1 Gondangdia state elementary school in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

The student, 12-year-old Enas Erliana Zakia Yudana, said she and her friends were continuing their three-month long efforts to encourage fellow students to consume healthy food and stop buying unhealthy snacks from street vendors around the school.

'€œWe staged a demo and familiarized them with healthy snacks during lunch,'€ she said during the announcement of the winner of the Dokter Kecil Sadar Gizi (Nutrition-Savvy Little Doctors) competition, which was part of a nutrition campaign held by food company PT Nestle Indonesia.

Enas, whose school clinched first prize, said their target was giving information on how to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy snacks.

SD 3 Sedayu won the competition, which was participated in by 400 students from 100 schools located in Balikpapan, Banda Aceh, Bandung, Greater Jakarta, Makassar, Manado, Medan, Surabaya and Yogyakarta.

The schools were tasked with running awareness-raising programs for students on nutrition.

The so-called '€œlittle doctors'€ were trained on nutrition and healthy eating, so that they could be '€œagents of change'€ that made the programs a success.

Third place went to SD Pondok Jagung 1 state elementary school in Tangerang. It used cards to familiarize students with nutrition.

SD Pondok Jagung 1 teacher Mutia Sabariah said the cards helped to disseminate knowledge in a fun way.

'€œI changed the pictures of the cards to pictures of food, like vegetables with vitamin A or types of fruit,'€ she said.

Mutia said the cards were more effective in dispersing knowledge than lecturing.

'€œThe enthusiasm is quite high every time we play the game each Saturday,'€ she said.

A judge from the competition, Rachmi Untoro, said the winners were chosen based on various criteria, including project originality and impact.

'€œI hope the program can continue after the competition,'€ she said.

Rachmi, a Indonesia Medical Nutritionists Association supervisory board member, said nutrition knowledge was essential as four out of 10 children in Indonesia suffered malnutrition.

'€œThe development of 37 percent of children in Indonesia is slower than the standard [required] at their age,'€ she said.