•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

At least 7.6 million Indonesian children under the age of 5 — or one out of every three — suffer from stunted growth, a primary manifestation of malnutrition in early childhood, according to a United Nations Children’s Fund report released on Monday. The report ranked Indonesia as having the fifth largest number of children under 5 suffering from stunted growth worldwide.

“If we can ensure that every child is exclusively breast fed for the first six months and then given appropriate complementary feeding and continued breast feeding until 2 years of age, we will significantly reduce stunting by about 15 percent and also reduce by almost 20 percent the deaths that occur among children under 5,” Angela Kearney, Unicef’s Indonesia representative, said on Monday at a discussion focused on malnutrition at a Jakarta hotel.

Nina Sardjunani, deputy head for human resources and cultural affairs at the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas), said the government was working toward reducing the percentage of children under 5 suffering from stunting from 37 percent in 2007 to 32 percent in 2014.

“The government recognizes that overcoming malnutrition among children is critical in advancing Indonesia as a country,” Nina said in a statement. “Without good nutrition, the quality of our human resources is compromised,” she added.

Normal heights for Indonesian children under 5, according to Minarto, chairman of the Indonesian Nutritionist’s Association (Persagi), were 81.7 centimeters for a 2-year-old boy and 80 centimeters for a 2-year-old girl, and 88.7 centimeters for a 3-year-old boy and 87.4 centimeters for a 3-year-old girl.

Soekirman , head of the Indonesian Fortification Coalition (KFI), a public nutrition organization, said that nutrition involved more than just quality food.

“Indonesians should realize that nutrition is about many issues, such as education, agriculture and religion,” Soekirman said. “If nutrition problems are not addressed, there will be the potential of weakened generations in the future.”

He added that Indonesia had not paid enough attention to nutrition over the past 15 years.

“Since the reform era in 1998, nutrition has not been an important point in the development of Indonesia,” he said.

The UN report pointed out that 90 percent of the developing world’s chronically undernourished children lived in Asia and Africa, and that 80 percent of them lived in just 24 countries.

Ranking first on the list is India, with over 60 million children under the age of 5 suffering from stunted growth, followed by China with 12.5 million, Nigeria with 10.15 million and Pakistan with 9.87 million.

War-torn Sudan is ranked No. 15 on the list with 2.3 million children under the age of 5 suffering from stunted growth, a 40 percent prevalence rate.

At Monday’s meeting high-level state officials and the UN representatives convened to take more serious steps toward controlling malnutrition among children in Indonesia.

“We will also coordinate with non governmental organizations and local communities to reach the targets,” Minarto said.