Unhealthy habits leads to malnutrition

Unhealthy habits leads to malnutrition

Leo Wahyudi S, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A little boy of two years old was crying for a pack of snack
when a vendor passed by a small alley in a dense dwellings in
Central Jakarta.

He was grabbing his mother's hand begging badly to satisfy his
childhood desires. Unwilling to see her beloved little boy
crying, the mother just fulfilled his demand.

Cheap snacks tempt children like no other foods. They look
good and taste good, too. Like a pack of crackers or dry noodle
that cost less than Rp 1,000, the snacks too often worked well
for many parents to calm down their children.

No wonder then that many parents spend more money on these
tantalizing foods rather than on milk and other such nutritious
fare.

Fitri, 29, said she used to spend Rp 3,000 a day buying snacks
for her two children, while she only allocated a little of her
money for milk as it cost her simply Rp 50,000 per month.

She would buy her children any snack they wanted, saying she
found it hard to say no to them.

Sometimes, she just gave the money to her children and did not
control what they bought for snacks, because she was unaware of
the importance of proper nutrition for her children.

"I found that my kids bought cheap snacks such as biscuits or
jello," said Fitri.

Another mother of two, Nina, said she did not know what kinds
of snacks her children were eating.

"The most important thing is to make sure my kids are happy,"
Nina said, adding that she gets Rp 20,000 from her husband for
her daily needs.

But now, Fitri and Nina have vowed to be more careful about
what their children eat, thanks to a recent healthy lifestyle
campaign that took place in their neighborhood.

Both Fitri and Nina live in the Bungur subdistrict in Central
Jakarta, where research on children's nutrition and lifestyles
was conducted between 1999 and 2002 by the University of
Indonesia's School of Medicine, with the support of the
Australian-New Zealand Women's Organization.

The research, which covered 566 children, found that in 2002
9.8 percent of the children under the age of five were suffering
from acute malnutrition. In 1999, that figure was 14 percent.

Of the total average monthly income of a family, some 19
percent is spent for snacks and only 4 percent for medical care,
according to Trevino Pakasi, one of the researchers.

Ninety percent of the parents who responded to the survey
bought junk food snacks for their children. And less than 30
percent spent more money for milk than snacks.

Junk food or snacks contains various kinds of additive and
preservative substances that could reduce children's appetite and
would in turn reduce their nutritious intakes.

According to research findings, the lacking of nutritious
intakes would likely inhibit the children development, said dr.
Eva Suarthana of the University of Indonesia's School of
Medicine.

A child will grow thin and weak and sometimes pale are some
signs of malnutrition state. As a result, children will tend to
get sick frequently and lose their weights.

Eva underlined that the major factor in malnutrition was not
poverty, but a lack of public awareness about proper nutrition.

The public campaign that followed the research has resulted in
an increased awareness on the part of local residents.

Ipah, 32, a mother of three, said she was now very strict
about her children's snacks.

"I try to control what my kids eat," Ipah said.

Ipah, who used to spend Rp 1,000 a day on snacks for each of
her children, now buys eight cartons of milk which cost her about
120,000 per month.

According to data from the Ministry of Health, in 2000 there
were about 660,000 children in Jakarta and 2.6 percent are in a
state of acute malnutrition.

Jane Smith, vice president of the Australian-New Zealand
Women's Organization, and the wife of the Australian ambassador
to Indonesia, said her organization was working to increase
awareness of the importance of eating nutritious foods.

"We have to educate the children and the parents that every
mouthful of food should have nutritious value," Smith said.