Malnutrition menaces C. Java children
By Haryoso
SEMARANG (JP): Sumirah is daydreaming. The 36-year-old mother is wishing that the days when she could properly feed her two under-5 children were back.
"Every day, I ask myself what I can give my children to eat," she said numbly while watching the children, aged 2 and 4, play in front of their humble house in Rembang, some 100 kms east of here.
Her husband is a pedicab driver who earns a mere Rp 3,000 (30 U.S. cents) a day. The income is far from enough to support the family of four with the price of rice having soared as high as Rp 4,000 per kilo.
"Often, my husband and I have to eat cassava so that we can have money to buy rice and tempeh for the children," she said. "We will do everything to ensure they don't get skinny."
The Suparlans, Sumirah's neighbors, are in the same boat. The parents eat cassava as the economic crisis bites deeper. Rice is only for their three children.
"My wife and I can stand hunger and we don't want to see our children underfed and have distended bellies," said Suparlan, a hawker of children's bamboo toys.
The deteriorating economic abyss has left him wondering how his family can survive and how his children, in their tender years, can grow normally if they lack vital nutrition.
Fear of widespread malnutrition due to the worsening crisis, especially among children, has been voiced by M. Sulaiman, a nutritionist of Kariadi General Hospital, Semarang.
He estimated that most of the about eight million children under 5 in Central Java are vulnerable to the threat unless the crisis is over very soon.
"If the crisis lingers on, more and more people won't be able to afford to buy basic needs," he noted.
The Kariadi Hospital is currently treating four malnourished children.
"They are getting better because their parents admitted them to the hospital at an early stage," said Sulaiman.
Experts say that late medical treatment could result in death or, at least, serious physical disabilities because vital organs are already affected.
Sulaiman noted that the soaring prices have catapulted prices of protein and vitamin-rich foods such as eggs, milk, meat and fish. Many parents have substituted cassava and rice curry.
"The best way to overcome the problem would be for the government to lower prices of basic commodities," he said.
Pediatrician Satoto, of Diponegoro University, Semarang, said there is no doubt the continuing economic crisis would be catastrophic to the health of children from poor families.
He likened the present condition to that of the 1950s. He recalled that children who enrolled in primary school in the 1970s, when the economy had recovered, were taller than children in the 1950s.
Satoto proposed that for animal protein, people from the low- bracket groups eat fish, which is cheaper than meat.
"But, the best solution would be to lower the prices of food," he said, noting that malnutrition would also affect pregnant women and fetuses.
Nutritionist Fatimah Muis, also from Diponegoro University, warned that malnutrition has "serious" consequences for the fetus.
Physically, one defect will be apparent from the newborn's low birth weight, usually less than 2.5 kilograms, she said. If malnutrition continues for nine months, the baby will be highly vulnerable to infection.
As the child grows it will very likely have lower intelligence and a smaller physique, she said.
Reports about the growing malnutrition problem have prompted the Central Java provincial health authorities to provide food for impoverished families.
The provincial health office's chief, Sri Astuti, said the government has been providing food supplements to pregnant women, nursing women and children in poor families.
"The government has been providing pregnant women and workers suffering from anemia with iron tablets, and children under 5 with iodine capsules and Vitamin A," she said.
People here, and everywhere, share a common hope: an end to the economic crisis so that they can afford to buy basic foodstuffs, enough for a decent living.