MATERNAL KNOWLEDGE AND NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN (6-12 YO) IN MEDAN KRIO VILLAGE DELI SERDANG REGENCY

Abstract

Adequate nutrition and food are the most important factors in developing the quality of human resources. They are the key factors in the success of a nation's development. In this case, nutrition turns out to have a great influence on human intelligence and work productivity. So that planning efforts to improve the nutritional status of the population can be carried out properly, all influential aspects need to be studied, including aspects of food patterns, socio-culture, and the influence of food consumption on nutritional status. Nutrition problems are essentially public health problems, but they cannot be solved with medical approaches and health services alone. Many factors cause nutritional problems, therefore the approach to overcome them must involve various related sectors. In certain cases, such as in crisis situations (drought disasters, wars, social chaos, economic crises), nutritional problems arise due to food security problems at the household level, i.e. the ability of households to obtain food for all their members. Improving the nutritional status of the community requires policies that ensure every member of the community can obtain food in sufficient quantity and quality. Nutritional problems faced by elementary school-age children include: obesity, failure to grow, anemia due to iron deficiency and caries in teeth and worm infections. Obesity is usually caused by the consumption of food that exceeds their daily needs.On the contrary, failure to grow is usually caused by a lack of nutrient intake. This is a descriptive research method, which aims to get an accurate picture of a number of characteristics studied. This study obtained that 22 respondents (48,9%) had enough knowledge in the age group of >30 yo, 20 respondents (44,4%) were graduated secondary school , 20 respondents (44,4%) were housewives and 25 respondents (55,6%) obtained health information through electronic media.