Malnutrition Stunts Growth of Generation of Indon Children (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

south china morning post
Thursday??September 24??1998
Indonesia
Malnutrition stunts growth of generation
JENNY GRANT in Jakarta
The mental and physical growth of a generation of children is under threat
as
Indonesia's economic crisis worsens.
More than half the children under two years old in Java, the most populous
island, were suffering from malnutrition, Unicef, the UN Children's Fund,
said
yesterday.
And the number of children under three in Java suffering severe
malnutrition
has risen from one in 12 two years ago to one in seven this year, according
to
a study by the charity Helen Keller International.
The Government said malnutrition and other health problems had risen
rapidly
in line with rising food prices exacerbated by the plunge in the value of
the
rupiah.
Inflation is running at 70 per cent.
The Keller study found anaemia in children below three years of age had
risen
by half in two years, and now affected 60 per cent of Java's children,
while
diarrhoea rates doubled in women and children in Central Java.
Stephen Woodhouse, Unicef's country representative in Indonesia, said
malnutrition in early childhood was "particularly important" because that
was
when the brain developed.
"No matter what you do after that age you cannot recoup that mental
potential"
if you have lost it through lack of nutrition, said Mr Woodhouse.
The high malnourishment and diarrhoea rates will push up rates of disease
and
child mortality.
Diarrhoea already kills 60,000 five-year-olds in Indonesia annually.
"Malnourishment contributes to diarrhoea and vice versa. If you're
malnourished you may die," said Mr Woodhouse.
The study also found women and children in the eastern islands of Sulawesi
and
Kalimantan ate only half the amounts of protein-rich eggs and milk that
they
were eating two years ago.
Dr Dini Latief, head of community nutrition at the Department of Health,
said:
"We have malnutrition due to low purchasing power.
"Mothers have no choice to buy food because their incomes are very low."
Dr Latief said eight million children under five suffered malnourishment
ranging from mild to severe.
"Their intake only meets 75 to 80 per cent of their daily energy
requirement
of 1,200 to 1,600 calories, " she said. "Sometimes kids look healthy, they
go
to school and run around, but when we weigh them they come in well below
weight for their age," said the Government's top nutritionist.
Dr Latief warned the long-term effects would be stunted growth, wasting and
slow learning.
She said the Government had set up a crisis centre in Jakarta to respond
rapidly to reports of acute malnourishment and was also trying to feed
primary
school children with high-protein biscuits in classrooms.
The Minister of Food, A. M. Saefuddin, last week said 17 million
Indonesians
were facing severe food shortages.
He said in Central and East Java 4.4 million families could only afford one
meal a day.
Speaking yesterday in the central Java village of Kuwaren, anthropologist
Adriani Sumampouw said conditions in the villages where she does her
research
were severe.
"There are no funds for education and hardly enough to eat.
"They are just eating small amounts of rice with sauce, a dry biscuit or
some
cassava."