Mataram, University of Mataram – The Community Service Program for Village Community Empowerment of the University of Mataram, Jembatan Kembar Village 2023 in collaboration with the Jembatan Kembar Health Center to carried out counseling activities related to the Importance of Fulfilling Toddler Nutritional Intake to Prevent Stunting and the launch of a Handbook entitled ‘Recognize Stunting and Prevent It’ on Wednesday (12/07/2023) at the Jembatan Kembar Village Health Post, Lembar District,  West Lombok Regency.

In this activity, the speakers and the students not only educated about the importance of fulfilling nutrition in children, but also filled with posyandu activities accompanied by the provision of demonstrations of healthy and nutritious snacks in the form of pudding made from Purple Sweet Potatoes. Purple sweet potato is a food ingredient that is rich in nutrients and able to prevent stunting.

According to the United State Department of Agriculture, in every 100 grams of purple sweet potatoes contained 85 kilocalories; 20 grams of carbohydrates; 3 grams of dietary fiber; 1.6 grams of protein; 30 grams of calcium; 0.6 grams of iron; and 77.28 grams of water.

Meanwhile, Indah Gita Paramega, Amd.Gz., as the speaker explained various things about nutrition and stunting. She explained that stunting is a chronic nutritional problem due to lack of nutritional intake in the long term, resulting in impaired growth in children.

“Stunting is also one of the causes of stunted children’s height, so, it is lower than children their age,” Indah explained.

Not to forget, the ‘Isi Piringku’ program which is one of the programs designed by the Ministry of Health to replace the previous program, known as ‘4 healthy 5 perfect’.

‘The Piringku described the portion of food consumed in one plate consisting of 50% fruits and vegetables and the other 50% consisting of carbohydrates and protein. The program also emphasized limiting sugar, salt and fat in daily consumption.

In addition, to the Isi Piringku program, four other important things are also emphasized, namely washing hands before eating, enough physical activity, drinking enough water, and monitoring height and weight.

In order to increase public understanding of stunting, Jembatan Kembar, all community service program students also successfully launched a Handbook entitled “Recognize Stunting and Its Prevention”. The launch handbook aims to educate the mothers of Jembatan Kembar Village about stunting with the hope that in the long term it can reduce stunting rates in the village.

The small book with a pink cover contains several material points, they are the introduction of stunting, the characteristics of children affected by stunting and good parenting to prevent stunting.

The Head of Jembatan Kembar Village, Amirullah, S. Sos., expressed his gratitude and appreciation for the students who had educated and provided knowledge related to the management of Purple Sweet Potatoes as well as reading results that are able to educate the public in the form of Handbooks.

“Hopefully the activities of Unram students can guide the community to recognize and prevent problems in the village,” he hoped.

Furthermore, Amirullah said that the activity provided benefits to cadre mothers. “So, after this activity is completed, it can be continued by the Cadre Mothers, so that, it can be carried out sustainably. This activity is also continuous with government programs in the field of Health, Therefore, we really appreciate the activities held by these students,” said the head of jembatan Kembar Village.

Meanwhile, Kartika Arini as the Cadre of the Gunung Gundil Posyandu expressed her response to the counseling.

“I think this activity is very effective because it is rare to hold activities like this. Besides being useful to increase insight, this activity also helps us as cadres a lot in educating the target audience of mothers and toddlers, so that in the future we can reduce stunting rates in this village. Hopefully, the community service program students can develop the potential of the village and help the village community expand even more.” She said to the all students of community service program  Jembatan Kembar 2023.