Skripsi

CORRELATION BETWEEN ENERGY AND PROTEIN INTAKES AND INFANT NUTRITIONAL STATUS INDICATORS IN URBAN SLUMS OF EAST JAKARTA IN 2009

Malnutrition is a leading cause of death worldwide. It is also a very common problem in many developing countries, such as Indonesia, India and Vietnam. One of the most common causes is lack of awareness of the importance of providing adequate nutritional intake to infants. The first 1,000 days of life is a crucial period for growth and development so that substantial and good nutritional intake is necessary to be given during this period. Otherwise, the risk of developing diseases in the future of the infants will increase. The prevalence of malnutrition among infants in Indonesia is still high. In order to overcome this problem, the source should be firstly identified. One way of the investigation is by observing the correlation between nutritional intakes of the infants and their nutritional status indicators. The present study focuses only on macronutrient intakes, which are energy intakes that come from carbohydrates and fats and protein intakes. If nutritional status of infants is significantly and positively correlated with energy or protein intake, some efforts to improve eating habits regarding the carbohydrate and fat intakes or protein intake should be taken into action. Therefore, poor infant nutritional status can be fixed. In the present study, the age of the subjects range from 6 to 8 months and there are more male infants that participated when compared to female infants (n = 56). It was observed that in urban slums of Kampung Melayu, the average energy and protein intakes of the infants is consistent with Indonesian RDA 2004 (834.28 ± 195.54 kcal and 17.6175 ± 7.98 grams, respectively). However, there were actually 48.21% of total subjects who received energy intake lower than the recommended intake and 44.46% who received lower protein intake. The infants in this area also suffered from abnormal nutritional status, with 5.5% suffering from stunting, 3.6% suffering from wasting and 9.1% suffering from undernutrition. The present study did not find any significant correlation between protein intake and infant nutritional status indicators (Spearman test; p > 0.05). This can be explained by the slow effect of proteins on the development of the infants. The effects might be seen in infants older than 8 months. However, there is a significant correlation between energy intake and infant nutritional status indicators in Kampung Melayu (Spearman test; p < 0.05), with the strongest correlation found between energy intake and body height of the infants (Spearman test; r = -0.38). Even though significant correlations between energy intake and body weight or body height, the present study found that these variables (body height and weight) are inversely correlated with energy intake of the infants, inconsistent with the theory of positive correlation between energy intake and nutritional status indicators. This might be due to lack of energy intake deriving from ASI or breast milk, since infants with this range of age might have received energy mainly from breast milk. Collecting data of breast milk intake of infants will be helpful in determining energy intake status of infants.