Household food availability, maternal nutritional knowledge, and stunting in elementary students

Childhood stunting is one of the most significant impediments to human development, globally affecting approximately 162 million children under the age of 5 years. Stunting, or being too short for one’s age is defined as a height that is more than two standard deviations below the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards median. Indonesia, based on Indonesian Basic Health Research has a 30.8% prevalence of stunting. The available food is one of the strategies to meet the nutritional needs of children so that malnutrition can be prevented. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between household food availability and maternal nutritional knowledge with the incidence of stunting in elementary school-age children. This cross-sectional research was conducted at SDSN Jati Rahayu V Bekasi City which specifically from March to May 2019. The research sample used 105 students. The independent variables in this study were food availability and maternal nutritional knowledge, while the dependent variable is stunting. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Anthropometric measurements use digital scales to measure weight and microtoise to measure height The results of this study were analyzed by Fisher’s exact test. Result showed that there was no relationship between maternal nutritional knowledge and the incidence of stunting in school age children (p=0.441), as also between household food availability and the incidence of stunting in school-age children (p=0.307). As conclusion, this study showed that household food availability and maternal nutritional knowledge didn’t give effect to the incidence of stunting in school-age children at SDSN Jati Rahayu V Bekasi City.