UNAIR NEWS – There are 4 prioritized health problems in Indonesia that become the concern of the Ministry of Health to achieve Healthy Indonesia. One of the four priority issues is stunting. According to the Ministry of Health data in 2018, stunting cases in Indonesia showed 37.2 percent. That is, 4 out of 10 children in Indonesia are confirmed to have stunting.
Stunting is a chronic nutritional problem caused by poor nutritional intake in the long term, generally due to food intake that does not match nutritional needs, resulting in impaired growth in children such as the child’s height is lower or shorter (dwarf) than the standard age.
Some factors that can be the cause of stunting include lack of food intake, the presence of infectious diseases, poor mother’s knowledge, wrong parenting, poor sanitation and hygiene, and low health services.
From this problem, the community nursing student of Universitas Airlangga initiated community service themed ‘Overcoming Stunting with Environmental Modification”. The community service was held on Thursday, November 29 in Glagaharun, Porong District, Kabutan Sidoarjo.
There are 3 innovative food menus demonstrated by students to mothers who have children with stunting, siomay seafood, pempek mujair, and mash potato shrimp. The three innovative food menus are modified similar to children’s daily snacks. However, the value of the nutritional content produced by these 3 innovative foods is very high in zinc, different from the usual snacks consumed by children.
According to Idham Choliq as the chief executive of community service, mentoring families, especially mothers, is very important in fulfilling the nutritional needs of stunting children.
“Our goal carrying out community service and choosing stunting as the topic is to involve families to care of members who have health problems. Families have the duty to maintain the health of their children. One of their tasks caring for their sick family members, “Idham said.
Furthermore, Idham said that the ability of parents, especially mothers, to modify food, is one form of how mothers care for their stunting children.
“With this community service activity, we hope that mothers will have awareness and ability to provide nutrition to their stunting children,” he said.
On the same occasion, Dr. Retno Indarwati, S.Kep., Ns., M.Kep, the program assistant lecturer stated that the core of this community service was to make children healthy.
“Stunting is still a major problem in Indonesia. So, there should be special treatment starting from the intervention of the first 1,000 days of birth and the provision of adequate nutrition. For this reason, this activity is expected to stimulate mothers and families to make their children healthy, “said Retno.
The community service program was attended by 12 families who had children with stunting. The program begins with anthropometric measurements to ensure children condition. Furthermore, counseling was conducted about and how to handle stunting. Then it was closed by demonstrating three types of innovative food as a way to overcome nutritional problems in stunting children. (*)
