The Three Months Balanced Diet Recommendation Education Could Improve Mother’s Knowledge and Compliance in Better Diet and Nutrient Intake for Stunted Children in Surabaya, Indonesia

Abstract

Intruduction: Stunting is a condition of low height for age in children that indicates a linear growth
failure influenced to cognitive development for under two children. Balanced Diet Recommendation (BDR)
specific for stunted children had not explore to get better outcome in nutrition. The purpose of this study was to
analyze mother’s knowledge and compliance in giving better diet as well as energy, protein, Fe, zinc intake
for stunted children after getting 3 months education on BDR. Methods: The study was pre-post-test one
group quasy experimental study. A total of 150 stunted children were involved, selected from 36 primary
health centers in Surabaya.The BDR was derived from Optifood Linear Programming and prepared it for
stunted children in Surabaya. Education on BDR was provided 3 times within 3 months by trained supervised
nutritionists. Mother’s compliance was assessed using the last 6 months Semi Quantitative Food Frequency
and 2x24 hours food recall were used to measure nutrient intake. Height was measured with microtoise.
The data were analyzed using paired t-test. Results: There was an improvement in mother’s knowledge
and mothers’ compliance in giving better diet and nutrition intake to their stunted children. The mean of
mother’s compliance increased from 8.3 to 10.4 (p=0.00) and nutrients intake of all respondents increased
significantly (p=0.000). Prolonged education may have impact to height for age z- score.Conclusions:
Education on locally specific BDR for stunting is an important approach to improve the dietary intake
and nutrition status of stunted children.