TV Schedule

Indonesian childrens' growth stunted as food prices rise


  3. LindseyIndigo
  4. related topics
The World Food Programme says child malnutrition on the Indonesian island of Lombok has reached 40% in some places, reports the BBC.

Part of the problem here, says the WFP's country director Angela van Rynbach, is not how much children eat, but what they eat.

She says meals here often consist of a disproportionate amount of rice and very few vegetables.

Families are able to grow rich crops of vegetables in the fertile ground - cassava, beans, aubergines, spinach - but they are having to sell their vegetables in order to make ends meet, and to be able to afford to buy rice as prices rise.

"It's more important to buy rice," one mother explained. "It's better for my children to eat more rice, rather than more vegetables. Even if we only have rice, without any vegetables - as long as we have salt - it's OK."

But according to nutritionists, it is not OK. Eating rice and little else, they say, puts children at risk of stunted growth, lower IQ and weaker immune systems.

But rice has an almost mythical status in rural Asia - as food, as livelihood, as a symbol of life itself.

Many people live, and farm - and eat - much as their grandparents did.

But their connection to the global economy is closer now, and as the price of rice goes up, so does the pressure on families to turn more of their vegetables into money rather than food.
LindseyIndigo

Add your response

Login/Registration is required to add a response.