Community has major role in stunting prevention: DPR
Purwakarta, Indonesianpost.com – The community has an important role in preventing stunting so public outreach to build understanding about the condition needs to continue, a member of Commission IX of the House of Representatives (DPR) Putih Sari said.
“The community basically has a major role in preventing stunting within the community itself. So the public must really understand stunting,” she explained during a working visit here on Saturday.
People’s understanding of stunting must continue to be improved so that they can protect their families from the condition, she added.
If they have an understanding of stunting, people can know how to protect themselves, their children, and their families so that the chain of the causes of stunting can be broken, she expounded.
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Therefore, efforts to provide understanding about stunting to the public must continue to be intensified, she stressed.
Sari advised the community, especially mothers, to pay attention to how they care for their children, especially in terms of providing proper attention and nutrition.
“So, don’t let mothers give non-nutritious food to their children just because they have the wrong understanding,” she said.
Meanwhile, the secretary of the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) in West Java province, Irfan Indriastono, said a family assistance team tasked with assisting families at risk of stunting has been recruited as part of efforts to reduce stunting cases in the province.
“BKKBN has formally initiated the formation of teams to accelerate stunting reduction at all regional levels, starting from village, sub-district, district/city, to provincial level,” said Indriastono.
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Besides, BKKBN is also conducting audits whenever stunting cases are reported in an area, he added.
The audits are observed, monitored, and analyzed by experts to support good practices to prevent stunting in the area.
Indriastono said that stunting intervention has been carried out since 2018.
However, BKKBN only became involved in the efforts after the issuance of Presidential Regulation No.72 of 2021, which appointed BKKBN as the executive coordinator, so the agency’s role in reducing stunting effectively began in 2021.