Thus, stunting is not only suffered by children who live far from the national capital.Jakarta (ANTARA) - At least 51.2 percent of stunted children under the age of five are in the five largest provinces in Indonesia, acting director general of public health at the Health Ministry, Murti Utami, informed on Tuesday.
The data was collected during a survey on the nutritional condition of children aged under 5 in 2021, she said at the 2022 National Working Meeting for the Population and Family Planning Development Program.
The five provinces with the highest number of stunted children are West Java (1,055,608 children), East Java (653,218 children), Central Java (543,963 children), Banten (294,862 children), and North Sumatra (383,403 children), she added.
“Thus, stunting is not only suffered by children who live far from the national capital. It turns out that West Java, which is very close to Jakarta, has the highest number of stunted children under five years old in Indonesia," the acting director general pointed out.
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However, based on the prevalence rate, the provinces with the highest stunting rate are East Nusa Tenggara (37.8 percent), West Sulawesi (33.8 percent), Aceh (33.2 percent), and West Nusa Tenggara (31.4 percent), she added.
Other provinces include Southeast Sulawesi (30.2 percent), South Kalimantan (30 percent), as well as West Kalimantan (29.8 percent), she said.
If a mother is anemic since her teens, there is high probability of her child being born stunted, Utami noted.
Therefore, the ministry will strengthen collaboration with the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN to provide vitamins to teenage girls in schools or additional nutritional intake for mothers who are chronically malnourished, she informed.
Meanwhile, head of BKKBN, Hasto Wardoyo, said that dense population is also one reason for the high stunting numbers in the five biggest provinces although the areas are not underdeveloped.
The five provinces do not actually have a high prevalence rate, he noted. However, families living in the provinces often have a large number of children because they do not space births, he added.
In addition, there are a high number of early marriages in these provinces, resulting in a high total fertility rate and stunted births.
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Translator: Hreeloita Shanti, Uyu Liman
Editor: Suharto
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