Nutritional Status of Toddlers Taken Care for by Parents and by Other Than Parents

Abstract

The toddler is one of the stages of children’s development in which they thrive and grow rapidly so they need good nutrition and stimulation from their parents. However, not every toddler is directly raised by their parents as the main caregivers. They are being forced to be taken care of by others such as nannies or other family members like grandparents, etc. This research aims to compare the nutritional status of toddlers with those growing up conditions. The research was a comparative study. The population was mothers who had toddlers and samples were taken by purposive sampling technique with a total of 97 mothers. This research was conducted at Payung Sekaki Health Center, Pekanbaru. Data were taken by child-care questionnaires and anthropometry observation sheet (weight per age) then data were analyzed by Chi-square test. The Chi-square test found that 56 children that were directly cared for by parents had normal nutrition and 7 were not. Meanwhile, of children whose caregivers were other than parents, 28 were in a normal nutrition state and 6 children were not (p-value 0.369; α 0.05). This study concluded that no difference was observed in nutritional status between toddlers that directly cared for by their parents and others who were not. Therefore, further research is needed regarding other factors that are predictors of nutritional status in toddlers.
 Keywords: nutritional status, toddler, parents