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Dietary Guidelines are sets of advisory statements that give dietary advice for population to promote nutritional well-being. They contain information on foods or behaviors that are encouraged and cautionary messages derived from scientific evidence-based reviews and specific local conditions. The Indonesian Dietary Guidelines consisting of 13 messages that were publicized by the Ministry of Health in 1995 and have not been reviewed afterward in relation to nutritional status and health outcome of the population. By reviewing studies on different age groups in the past 10 years and comparing the results with the recommended guidelines, this paper aims to identify if messages have been successfully applied and if there are relevant issues not yet covered in the guidelines. The reviews covered 29 out of 33 provinces, representing studies from sub-district or higher levels (district, provincial, national). Results showed that some messages have been better implemented than others; also that information for some messages was not available for which to conclude of its implementation. In addition, some practices were identified which are prevalent in several age groups and have important public health consequence, but not yet included in the 13-guidelines. These include: smoking, increased intakes of fruit and vegetables, limited intakes of salt and sugar, increased intakes of foods rich in zinc and calcium (besides iron), hand-washing before food preparation and eating, and weight-monitoring. For infants and young children, nutrient density, feeding responsiveness and stimulation should be specifically highlighted. Based on the results, several recommendations in revising the guidelines were given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The food security assessment used by the United State's Food Security/Hunger Survey Module (US- FSSM) was used in five studies: these were in two urban and four rural areas in Indonesia between February 2004 - August 2005. The number of households assessed was 3,704 and consisted of 45% urban and 55% rural. All households had children below five years. This paper aims to assess the applicability of US-FSSM for measuring household food-insecurity in Indonesia. Common coping-strategies discussed are to borrow money from the family, get an additional job, to lessen portion size of food, and to sell small assets. Although households in urban and rural areas were similar in size/number of children and male headed; the urban households were more income-secure, educated, and had better access to electrical appliances. A majority of the households was food-insecure (77% and 84% in urban and rural consecutively). More food-insecure households without and with hunger were found in rural areas. The number of affirmative responses to 17 out of 18 questions in the US-FSSM was more in the rural households, showing less fortunate cases of food-insecurity. For a given coping strategy, as food-security status becomes more severe, the higher the percentage of households employing it. For a given food-security status, percentage of households was higher among lower-degree and less among higher-degree coping. Combining food-security and coping-strategy indicators may help to identify transient-food- secure households. Observing both indicators throughout different time of the year continuously may further identify adaptive mechanism by chronic-food-insecure households. Information on household food diversity could enrich findings on dietary intake modification, hence moving from food-security to nutrition-security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia, like many developing countries, is experiencing a rapid urbanisation characterised by double burden of disease in which non communicable diseases become more prevalent while infectious diseases remain undefeated. This report describes the nutrition transition which occurred to Indonesia after economic transformation in 1966, based on information gathered from published reports. The major sources of information used in this paper were: a) a series of Indonesian National Socio-Economic Surveys (SUSENAS) conducted regularly by Central Bureau of Statistics (which provided a coherent picture of the nutrition transition in Indonesia) and b) data collected from two relatively smaller surveys conducted in West Sumatra (which demonstrated the changes in food and nutrient intakes over the period 1983-1999). It was found that while Indonesia had a rapid economic growth since 1970s, major dietary changes included an increase in expenditure for meat, eggs, milk and prepared food, and a fall in expenditure in cereal products. Nutrient proportions had changed from carbohydrate to fat and protein but the proportions remained close to the ideal ratio. There was also a dramatic shift in causes of death from infectious to chronic diseases. It is concluded that the nutrition transition in Indonesia is similar to patterns in other developing countries. Although fat consumption increased slightly, there is movement to maintain the traditional diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia has been afflicted by an economic crisis since July 1997. The economic crisis was preceded by a long drought associated with El Nino. The result has been a decline in food production, especially rice. In the eastern part of the country, especially in Irian Jaya, there was food insecurity during the early stages of the economic crisis. When the crisis escalated to become an economic, social and political crisis in 1998, food insecurity spread to other provinces, especially to urban areas in Java. The crisis led to increasingly high inflation, unemployment, poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition. The official figures indicate that poverty in Indonesia increased from 22.5 million (11.3%) in 1996 to 36.5 million (17.9%) in 1998. Food production decreased by 20–30% in some parts of the country. Compared with prices in January 1998, food prices had escalated 1.5- to threefold by August/November 1998 when acute food shortages occurred, especially in urban Java. Coupled with a drop in purchasing power, the higher food prices worsened health, nutritional status and education of children of urban poor and unemployed families. Despite social and political uncertainties, the Indonesian Government has taken prompt action to prevent a worsening of the situation by massive imports of rice, instituting food price subsidies for the poor and launching social safety net programmes to cope with food shortages and malnutrition. The present paper attempts to highlight the impact of the economic crisis on food insecurity and malnutrition in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]