Nutrient-Rich Local Foods Promote Healthy Growth Among Toddlers

Abstract

Balanced nutrition is a daily diet containing nutrients in the types and amounts appropriate to the body's needs, while taking into account the pillars of the balanced nutrition concept. The problem of balanced nutrition remains a major challenge in Indonesia, especially for toddlers in rural areas. The purpose of this community service is to increase mothers' knowledge on how to measure toddler nutritional status, determine balanced nutrition, and be able to utilize local food ingredients to make toddler food with balanced nutrition. The community service method is carried out through counseling, distribution of pre- and post-test instruments, and conducting demonstrations of making food with balanced nutrition using local food ingredients to 13 mothers. This activity was carried out in Gampong Lam Batee, Darul Kamal District, Aceh Besar Regency. The results of the activity showed that the target group was very enthusiastic in participating in the activity, both during the presentation in the counseling and during the discussion. This is evidenced by the change in mothers' knowledge between before and after the counseling and demonstration (P Value 0.0026), where mothers' knowledge increased by 12%. The community is encouraged to be able to maximize the use of local food ingredients that are easily obtained and have balanced nutrition.