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With 900,000 Indonesians aged younger than 5 not getting enough nutrition, the United Nations World Food Program highlighted on National Nutrition Day on Wednesday the need to combat undernutrition.

“Proper nutrition is at the heart of all progress, contributing to the development of healthier, stronger and brighter citizens. It has an integral role in poverty reduction and sustainable economic development achievements,” WFP Indonesia country director Coco Ushiyama said in a statement.

While the number of underweight children has declined over the years, chronic malnutrition is still prevalent among children in the nation. An estimated 36 percent of Indonesian children are stunted, according to Ministry of Health research from 2010.

According to its data, chronic malnourishment is ranked “high” nationwide, and those ranked “very high” were provinces such as East Nusa Tenggara and Papua, with 58 percent and 48 percent prevalence respectively.

“Stunting leads to higher childhood mortality, lower cognitive development and reduced economic productivity in adulthood,” Martin Bloem, the chief of the nutrition policy division at the WFP headquarters in Rome, said in a presentation in Jakarta last week.

He further explained that recent studies clearly showed that children with chronic malnourishment would have higher tendency to experience obesity, diabetes and chronic vascular diseases when they are grown.

“Prevention of stunting therefore also needs to be incorporated into the national strategy in preventing non-communicable diseases,” Bloem said.

The overall nutrition policy of the WFP focuses on delivering the right food at the right time and in the right place, the organization says.

It also focuses specifically on the first 1,000 days of life, from the time the baby is in the womb until it reaches 2 years of age. During those critical phases, it is believed that poor diet can lead to permanent negative effects on the physical and intellectual development of the child.