Dear Christine,
I would like to propose the issue of caring arrangement at household level and its relation to children nutritional status.
My concern is based the fact that most of the intervention of nutrition program are based in household level, yet many challenges is ahead due to prevailing gender norms and changing pattern of caring arrangement in the society lately.
Taking example from Indonesia context, herewith my thought:
Despite convincing macroeconomic performance over the last decades, various national nutrition indicators highlighting nutrition crisis in Indonesia. With more than one third of the children aged five suffered from stunting, Indonesia is among the countries in the world with highest stunting prevalence in the world (IFPRI, 2013). According to UNICEF, 80 percent of world’s stunted children are living in 14 countries, including Indonesia (UNICEF, 2013). Data of Basic Health Survey released by Ministry of Heallth released in 2013 also shown that as many as 19.6 percent of Indonesia children aged under five years suffered from underweight, 21.1 percent wasting, and 37.2 percent stunting (Riskesdas, 2013). If reffering to World Health Organization (WHO) standard, Indonesia faces very severe wasting and stunting problem, dan medium severe underweight problem. A worrisome nutrition figures can also been seen from micronutrient deficiency on children which prevalence considered high in Indonesia, with 28.1 percent among children aged under five years suffering from anemia, and 29 percent among children aged five to twelve years. While a better nutrition performance were shown by other countries in lower income group than Indonesia, including the surrounding nations in South East Asia such as Phillipine, Vietnam, and Myanmar.
The increasing national welfare has bring about social transformations that some how contribute to the way people eating in recent days, including children. With changing in caring arrangement due to rising numbers of working women and reduced time for care, the way children eating has been evolving in recent years (Nurbani, 2015). As shown by expenditure for consumption data released by National Statistics Agency, people are now spending largest share of their food expenditure on prepared food (BPS, 2013). As for children, there is a widespread concern about children’s snacking habits (IDS, 2015; SMERU, 2016 forthcoming). Parents are now seeking for a more convenient way to acquire dietary needs for children, as well as for the other household members (Crepinsek and Burstein, 2004). Prepared and instant food seems to be an alternatives for people to safe time from drudgery cooking activities and all the supporting activities toward cooking—such as shopping, preparing ingredients, washing dish, heating the meal, as well as to safe the money. The change in the way children eating can be a worrisome for Indonesia because apart from its success in maintaining macro-economic condition, this newly middle income country still can not escape from the problem of hidden hunger, especially of those children from poor household.
When talking about caring and feeding of children, then we have to aware about the prevailing gender-norm which become the context. The prevailing gender-norm in Indonesia and many other parts of the world, still put women as the main care giver in household who are the most responsible in assuring children's food intake and nutrition. With increasing number of women participating in economic work, some people believe it will give rise to new problems related to the fulfillment of children food intake and nutrition, especially children from poor household. Economic constraints experienced by poor households has encouraged women of the households to work outside home looking for additional income. While on the other hand, they still have to carry out their responsibility to ensure food intake and nutrition of children at home. Double burden that women experience will affect the quality of care provided to children as can be seen from the children’s nutritional status. This also has been exacerbated by the fact that family ties is no longer in the form of extended family but already a nuclear family, especially for those who lives in urban. If in the past women could get support with child care from other family member, it is now becoming increasingly difficult for them to do so. Moreover, the existing government programs and campaign in increasing children's nutrition status are mostly put women as the main key actors in the household without put any attention to the women’s labor in providing the care and intra household caring arrangement. Women in particular mother's (instead of carer's) level of education and knowledge in feeding practices are often used as important indicator in assessing children's food and nutrition security status.
Although many advocacy and government institutions share common arguments on the importance of care for future generations and believe that women give significant contribution in children's nutrition status through the caring practices they provided, the government has not given any sufficient support for households—especially poor households, in providing quality care. Caring practice is still perceived as something taken for granted that do need to be intervened by public policy thus a household must find its own way of arranging child care and assuring food and nutrition needs of children.
Rachma Nurbani