Abstract

Malnutrition is a state where the body does not get sufficient nutrition. Riskesdas data in
2018 showed that the percentage of malnutrition in children under five years reaches 17.7%; it is
still high compared to the prevalence of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s standard that
only 10%. The objective of this study is to assess geographic and parenting factors towards
malnutrition in children under five years. Data was taken from Riskesdas 2018. We used
nutrition status – weight-for-age – of children under five years. This study was done by analyzed
data from Riskesdas 2018 with previous studies. From a sample of 300,000 household from
30,000 census blocks across Indonesia, the prevalence of malnutrition in Indonesia is 17.7%,
3.9% for severely malnourished and 13.8% for moderately malnourished. The highest score of
malnutrition prevalence is 29.5% for East Nusa Tenggara, while the lower prevalence is 13.1%
for Bali. Table 2 shows the prevalence of nutritional status by characteristics. For the
characteristics of the age group, the prevalence of malnutrition is highest in the 24-35 month age
group (20.7%) and lowest in the 6-11 month age group (12.1%). For sex characteristics, the
prevalence of male malnutrition (18.8%) is higher than that of women (16.6%). For the
characteristics of parental education, the highest prevalence is those who have graduated from
elementary (20.3%) while the lowest is those who have graduated from tertiary institutions
(12.6%). For the occupational characteristics of parents, parents that work as a fishermen have
the highest prevalence (25.8%) and civil servants have the lowest prevalence (11.3%). For
residential characteristics, people living in rural areas (20%) have a higher prevalence of
malnutrition than in urban areas (15.7%). Geographic and parenting factors have a profound
effect on the malnutrition prevalence among children under five years.