Nutritional Needs Children Affect Intelligence

Research shows no link between short body and level of intelligence. If the beginning is not there a balance weight and height, it will affect the formation of the brain. Therefore, the nutritional needs of infants from the fetus until the age of five years should be met promptly. Standardization Section Head, Sub Micro Nutrition, Directorate General of Public Health Nutrition at the Health Department Dr Atmarita confirms that in Jakarta, yesterday, on the sidelines of the XII National Congress and the scientific meeting Nutritionist Association of Indonesia (Persagi). 


According Atmarita, child development is very slow due to the formation of the brain and the body is not good due to bad nutrition. "That's the most important thing is the human diet since the baby's birth until age five, and if not met, the growth of brain and body is not good. Children with short body, he argued, means that nutritional status in the past has been chronic, "explained Atmarita. 


However, he continued, until the age of 18 years are nutrient intake is still important for children's physical growth. So if a person's body lean, Atmarita rate, it is influenced by nutritional status at the time. Together with his colleague, Dr. Robert L. Tiden, nutrition experts are analyzing the problem of malnutrition in urban areas is linked to new heights of children enter school.Atmarita say, 62% more children in urban areas have a normal height in terms of age, while children in rural areas only 49%.Then concluded that children in urban areas have better nutritional status than children in rural areas. However, obesity (obese) among children in urban areas tend to be higher than rural children. 

But, the problem began to increase not only in urban but also in rural areas. On the basis of these, Atmarita asserted, nutrition improvement programs should now be changed by watching the factors associated with patterns of population living in urban and rural areas. Earlier, Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi in a written speech read by Minister of Health Sector Decentralization Senior Advisor and Institutional Early Latif is concerned that the proportion of short children in Indonesia is still quite high. "I believe, nutrition experts know the situation in each area of the arena has been facilitated with the monitoring of nutritional status," he described. He added that already many studies that conclude the importance of nutrition to improve the ability to learn and get education up to the highest level. 

Minister of Health also cites several studies in the Philippines, Jamaica, and other countries that prove, the existence of a highly significant relationship between height and ability to learn. In fact, he said, resulting that the supplementary feeding of short stature in children aged 9-24 months will be able to improve the learning ability of children when aged 7-8 years. Also evidenced from several studies in economics in Ghana and Pakistan about the importance of nutrition to support the development. "Even with a lower prevalence of short children by 10%, will increase 2% -10% proportion of children who have enrolled in school."