Perception and culture within society are the primary challenges to handle the problem of stunting in Indonesia’s children, Head of the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) Hasto Wardoyo stated.

“There is also the fact that a lot of people are not poor, but they have the wrong eating pattern,” Wardoyo noted during the Government’s Commitment to Reduce Stunting event on TV ONE channel here on Friday.

Several people has a wrong perception when it comes to providing balanced nutrition to children, he noted.

To this day, there are still people who think that fast food or expensive food is required to meet the children’s nutritional needs, he explained.

This is despite the fact that providing nutrition through fast food or expensive food, such as meat, is not sufficient.

This mindset is something that Wardoyo believes should be changed in order to reduce the risk of children born with stunting.

He opined that to provide balanced nutrition to children, food does not need to be expensive. The intake of eggs and fish is deemed to be sufficient.

In addition to the wrong mindset surrounding balanced nutrition, the pre-wedding party culture has also become the next challenge to eradicate stunting, he noted.

People tend to attach greater importance to the culture rather than examining the health of mothers or future mothers, he highlighted.

As a result, several women marry but cannot conceive.

According to Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) data in 2018, more than 40 percent of pregnant women were anemic. This percentage affects the number of cases of stunting in Indonesia if aggressive and prompt preventive steps are not taken, he asserted.

Meanwhile, 29 percent of infants were born premature and 22 percent of the infants born with less than 48 centimeters in height, he stated.

“I think that in addition to sanitation and clean water, we should pay attention to this area. Once again, this is what we have to focus on,” Wardoyo noted.

Source: Antara News