Malnutrition Awareness Week (MAW) Campaign Grabs the Spotlight during CFD

From September 18th to 22nd, 2023, the Indonesian Nutrition Association participated in Malnutrition Awareness Week, an initiative aimed at raising awareness, diagnosis, and treatment of malnutrition in patients. Malnutrition Awareness Week is an annual cross-organizational campaign created by the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN) to emphasize nutrition as a patient's right and the vital role of nutrition in health and recovery. The Indonesian Nutrition Association (INA), as the official representative organization of ASPEN, conducted outreach activities on Sunday, September 17th, 2023, to reinforce

the importance of nutrition in medical treatment and educate the public about the significance of consulting healthcare professionals regarding their nutritional status.

During this outreach activity, fans containing information about malnutrition were distributed. The fan read, "Patients with malnutrition are 2.2 times more likely to be hospitalized with serious infections." This activity received a positive response from the community. The high enthusiasm led to the outreach starting earlier than scheduled.

In a heartwarming display of community engagement and commitment to promoting awareness about malnutrition, individuals have shown their enthusiasm by participating in Malnutrition Awareness

Week through Indonesian Nutrition Association's (INA) social media campaign.

Malnutrition Awareness Week, held annually from September 18th to 22nd, serves as a vital platform to educate and inform people about the importance of recognizing and addressing malnutrition, a critical health issue that often goes unnoticed. This year, INA took a creative approach to encourage participation and spread the word.

One of the standout features of INA's campaign was the introduction of a custom Instagram frame. This frame not only allowed individuals to showcase their support for Malnutrition Awareness Week but also served as an informative tool.

In a significant milestone for the cause of battling malnutrition, the Malnutrition Awareness Week (MAW) campaign has garnered the attention it truly deserves by making headlines on the Indonesian news channel, Berita Satu TV.

Malnutrition Awareness Week, which takes place annually from September 18th to 22nd, is a vital initiative aimed at increasing awareness about the devastating impact of malnutrition and the urgent need for timely intervention. This year's campaign organized by the Indonesian Nutrition Association (INA) received a boost in visibility when Berita Satu TV decided to shine a spotlight on this crucial health issue.

The coverage on Berita Satu TV featured in-depth reporting on the various activities and efforts undertaken by INA during MAW. It highlighted the importance of recognizing and addressing malnutrition, shedding light on the alarming statistics associated with this often underestimated health concern.

Podcast : People think obesity is normal’ – How Indonesian Nutrition Association president is taking

Dr Lucy, president, has been invited to be the guest for Nutraingredients-Asia to talk in their podcast. As the first indonesian guest to be part of this podcast, Dr Lucy Shock speaks about shock statistics showing that one in five adults in Indonesia is obese is a wake-up call that needs to be urgently addressed through public education via social media, argues the president of the Indonesian Nutrition Association (INA).

Listen more from the podcast here :

Working collaboratively to tackle anemia among pregnant women, teenage girls

Given the complexity of the anemia problem in Indonesia, tackling blood deficiency among pregnant women and adolescents entails multi-stakeholder collaboration among the private and public sectors, which also go beyond institutions handling health issues, a webinar has concluded.

A JakPost UpClose webinar titled “Ironclad: Ending Intergenerational Anemia with Good Nutrition” was held on Tuesday, sponsored by Danone Indonesia.

Anemia among pregnant women in Indonesia is regarded as a severe public health problem due to its current prevalence of 48.9 percent based on the 2018 Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) carried out by the Health Ministry, exceeding the 40 percent threshold.

Furthermore, 32 percent of our teenage girls also suffer from anemia, which will seriously compromise their socioeconomic well-being and that of the next generation. Most pregnant women and teenage girls have deficiencies in animal protein, vitamin A, iron and iodine.

Indonesian Nutrition Association secretary Saptawati Bardosono revealed that Indonesia’s enduring anemia problem, which she has been studying since she was a university student in 1974, was driven by a complex web of risk factors: poverty, sanitation and culture.

“First of all, most of our iron source comes from animal protein, which is expensive for poor families. In regions with poor sanitation, children can suffer from anemia because they have intestinal worms, which result in diarrhea that disturbs their iron absorption. The fact that the Indonesian diet is heavy on cereal-based plants, especially rice, which disrupt iron absorption, should also be taken into account,” she said during the webinar.

Meanwhile, Danone Indonesia vice president general secretary Vera Galuh Sugijanto pointed to a lack of public awareness, in which the public tended to prefer tasty snacks or foods that lacked essential nutrients as another anemia risk factor.

To tackle this problem, the Health Ministry has disseminated iron supplement pills to pregnant women and teenage girls across Indonesia, along with fortified food ingredients, namely cooking oil, flour and salt fortified with vitamin A, iron and iodine, respectively.

In 2020, the ministry targeted 22.1 million teenage girls, approximately 2 million soon-to-be-married couples, 5.2 million pregnant women, as well as 9.3 million babies aged up to 23 months to receive this intervention. Meanwhile, Danone Indonesia has done its bit by helping with public awareness programs on nutrition covering 57,000 mothers, 4,600 teachers, 52,000 early childhood education students in 1,487 early childhood education schools across six provinces in Indonesia.

Danone Indonesia has also given nutritious food training to the canteen ladies of schools in the vicinity of its factories across Indonesia, while providing families around the areas with classes on essential nutrients during children’s first 1,000 days of life.

The ministry also complements this with public awareness and education campaigns on nutrition and sanitation. According to Dhian Proboyekti Dipo, the Health Ministry’s public health director general, anemia among pregnant women results in suboptimal embryo development, which will lead to irreversible physiological problems once the children are born.

“Therefore, these women can give birth to stunted babies, which are not only physically short but also have serious specific nutritional deficiencies,” Dhian said. Saptawati pointed out that iron deficiency, specifically during the gestation period and in the early days of childhood, compromised a child’s myelin formation, essential to its brain development. “Furthermore, iron also helps the synthesis of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to our body cells. Children especially need these physiological functions in order to study and explore their worlds properly,” she said during the webinar. Saptawati said that, again, disruptions to these body functions at an early age could result in irreversible learning and motoric system problems, causing children to be physically weak and passive, not to mention compromising their overall immune system, making them susceptible to various illnesses. This article was published in thejakartapost.com with the title "Working collaboratively to tackle anemia among pregnant women, teenage girls ". Click to read: https://www.thejakartapost.com/adv/2021/02/18/working-collaboratively-to-tackle-anemia-among-pregnant-women-teenage-girls.html. Download The Jakarta Post app for easier and faster news access: Android: http://bit.ly/tjp-android iOS: http://bit.ly/tjp-ios