"The emergence of various diseases in the world requires us, as a nation, to always increase the immune system of every child of the nation through the dissemination of healthy lifestyle habits in the country," she explained in a written statement received here on Tuesday.
She issued the statement in response to the 2021 Indonesian Nutritional Status Survey (SGI), which showed that one in four Indonesian children were stunted and one in ten children were malnourished.
This has been partly caused by the high rate of anemia and malnutrition in young women before marriage, which can lead to their delivering stunted children, Moerdijat noted.
She said that this situation must be handled quickly and consistently by educating the community about healthy lifestyle habits.
"The commemoration of World Breastfeeding Week on August 1–7 (2022), and marked by massive dissemination of the benefits of breastfeeding to the wider community in the country, must be made as a massive and measurable national program," she added.
She then cited data from the Presidential Staff Office which has shown a decline in the number of babies who are exclusively breastfed in Indonesia.
In 2018, 68.7 percent of babies were exclusively breastfed, in 2016, the figure dipped to 65.8 percent, and in 2021, it fell further to 53.5 percent.
Thus, it is expected that stakeholders will accelerate efforts to create a future generation that is healthy, physically and mentally, she said.
Only with full support from the community, efforts to accelerate the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits can be realized in order to answer existing challenges, she added.
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Translator: Imam Budilaksono, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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