'Hidden hunger' affects infant development<\/p>\n
By Joe Cochrane<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (DPA): Sitting in her makeshift wooden house along a
\nrailway track in an east Jakarta slum, Samila, the head of an
\nIndonesian family of five, just laughed when she was asked about
\nthe last time they ate meat during a meal.<\/p>\n
Samila, 32, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, does
\nnot have a faulty memory: The family's joint salary from
\nscavenging through garbage cans at a nearby luxury shopping mall
\nfor plastic, aluminum or anything else of value is about Rp
\n10,000 a day, which is just enough to buy rice and a few
\nvegetables.<\/p>\n
\"Meat is too expensive,\" she yelled as a passenger train
\nrumbled by less than a metre from her front door. \"What we earn
\nis just enough to get by.\"<\/p>\n
Nearby, Samila's daughter, Sulasi, 18, breastfeeds her infant
\nson, who refused to eat spoonfuls from a bowl of gruel-like hot
\nwater, vegetables and rice.<\/p>\n
As the women talked about their life - they moved to Jakarta
\nin 1998 when the Asian Economic Crisis sent unemployment soaring
\nin their east Java village - they were unaware that malnutrition
\nwas attacking the five-month-old boy, Jahrady, not to mention the
\nentire family.<\/p>\n
Malnutrition is a constant in developing countries, but
\nIndonesia, one of Asia's \"Tiger Economies\" of the 1990s and
\nfueled by 210 million people, is facing a problem of epidemic
\nproportions.<\/p>\n
As many as 20 percent of the country, or 52 million people,
\nsuffer from some form of micro-deficiency malnutrition, such as
\nlack of iron, zinc, Vitamin A or iodine.<\/p>\n
These essential vitamins are found in basic staples like red
\nmeat, eggs and iodized salt, which many Indonesians can no longer
\nafford.<\/p>\n
The government estimates that more than three million babies
\nborn after the 1997 economic crisis are malnourished, prompting
\nwarning bells of a \"lost generation\" of sick, growth-stunted
\nchildren.<\/p>\n
\"It's called 'The Hidden Hunger,'\" said Dutchman Ernest
\nSchoffelen, a nutrition project officer with the United Nations
\nChildren's Fund in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
\"It's not so visible, but if you compare a child on certain
\ndevelopment stages, like when the baby is able to hold its head
\nup or sit up, a delay in this is a result of the lack of micro-
\nnutrients,\" he said.<\/p>\n
This form of malnutrition has a devastating affect on physical
\nand mental development: Schoffelen said studies showed Indonesian
\nchildren who were iodine deficient were lower in I.Q. by 13.5
\npoints.<\/p>\n
He said around half of the country's child population under 5
\nyears old and 60 per cent of pregnant women suffered from iron
\ndeficiency, which can lead to decrease of 5 to 10 I.Q. points
\namong children and new-borns.<\/p>\n
Iodine deficiency causes a variety of health problems
\nincluding cretinism, deaf-mutism, goiter and dwarfism, while a
\nlack of zinc retards infant growth.<\/p>\n
Indonesia's growing malnutrition problem is directly linked to
\nits economic meltdown, which saw unemployment double to as high
\nas 60 million people virtually overnight.<\/p>\n
\"That has influenced people's purchasing power with those
\nquality foods,\" Schoffelen said. \"People would could afford to
\nbuy a piece of meat once a week can no longer do that.\"<\/p>\n
Jakarta's urban slums are packed with day laborers who lost
\ntheir jobs during the crisis, so it was no surprise that anemia
\namong infants in those neighborhoods increased by 80 percent, he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Indonesia also has tens of millions of adults who are
\nmalnourished, but their medical problems cannot be solely blamed
\non poverty, health officials said.<\/p>\n
The government is mulling over campaigns to educate
\nIndonesians of all income levels to vary their diets with foods
\nsuch as eggs and milk, rather than solely eating rice, the
\nnational staple.<\/p>\n
\"It's habit,\" said Sofjan Sudardjat, director-general of
\nlivestock services at the Ministry of Agriculture. \"We were
\n(wrongly) told as youngsters not to drink milk because it could
\ncause diarrhea, and not to eat eggs because it could cause
\nabscesses.\"<\/p>\n
He said Indonesians had the lowest consumption of meat per
\ncapita in Southeast Asia, far worse than smaller developing
\ncountries such as Cambodia and Laos.<\/p>\n
\"We fear that if the older generation is used to those habits,
\nthe younger generation will follow,\" Sudardjat said.<\/p>\n
Indonesia, which is lagging far behind its neighbors in
\nrecovering from the 1997 crisis, cannot afford to let that
\nhappen. Adults who suffer from iron deficiency have less physical
\nand oxygen capacity, and Indonesia could lose as much as US$7
\nbillion annually in productivity, Schoffelen said.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is set to launch a
\nrevised national nutrition guideline in an effort to encourage
\npeople to eat properly with an alternative main dish, besides
\nrice.<\/p>\n
However, such programs will likely not help Samila and her
\nfamily, or other slum dwellers in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
The cash-strapped government is spending less than three per
\ncent of its 2000 national budget on health, which is around half
\nthe amount spent by neighboring countries. Many welfare
\nprograms are riddled by corruption, which means budgeted
\ndistributions of iodized salt and iron tablets often never reach
\ntheir intended recipients.<\/p>\n
\"We get no help from the government,\" Samila said. \"If any
\ninternational aid is given to Indonesia, please don't give to the
\ngovernment. We will never receive it.\"<\/p>",
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