Local Snacks and Virtual Nutrition Counseling Services Increasing Growth of Stunting Children

BACKGROUND: The conducive factor of stunting is the deficiency in nutrient intake due to the lack of quantityand quality of food consumed by the children. Children’s food consumption is strongly influenced by the mother’s nutritional knowledge and children’s feeding practices. AIM: The aims of this study were to determine the effect of providing local snacks in South Sulawesi with a substitute of snakehead fish flour (Tibus) and virtual nutrition counseling on the growth of stunting children. METHODS: The design of this study used a randomized pretest-posttest control design. The sample was divided in two groups using systematic random sampling. The first group was given local Tibus snacks and nutritional counseling virtually and the second group was only given virtual nutrition counseling. The intervention was carried out every day until 1 month. The sample of this research was mothers who have stunting children under five of age. RESULTS: Nutrition knowledge of mothers in group one increased significantly before and after intervention (63.78 ± 1.68 vs. 73.70 ±1.35 points), but this was not the case in group two. The increase in maternal nutritional knowledge was higher in group one than in group two, although it was not significant (p = 0.91). The comparison of the weight gain of children in group one versus group two was 0.37 ± 0.49 kg versus 0.07 ± 0.39 kg (p = 0.021). The increase in the height of the children in group one before and after was 84.15 ± 7.79 cm versus 85.97 ± 7.95 cm (p = 0.000). The ratio of the increase in the height of the children in group one and group two was 1.82 ± 0.94 cm versus 1.53 ± 0.68 cm (p = 0.402). CONCLUSIONS: Nutrition counseling virtual can increase nutrition knowledge. The providing of local snacks (Tibus) accompanied by virtual nutrition counseling can increase growth in body length and weight of stunting children. The efforts to accelerate prevention stunting in children under five can be done with utilization of local snacks.