Stunting: what are the potential risk factors?

Abstract

Stunting in under-five years old children has negative impacts on cognitive and physical development of the children. This research aims to investigate the magnitude of odd ratio of exclusive breastfeeding, birth weight and birth length to stunting incidence in underfive children in Tilamuta District, Boalemo, Gorontalo, Indonesia. This research employs case-control design with purposive sampling. Samples are divided into two groups of case and control group with 40 samples each. The results showed that children in control group are more likely to have normal birth weight, normal birth length and are exclusively breastfed compare to case group. Meanwhile, children with low birth weight have 7.4 times risk to be stunted and children who have not exclusively breastfed have a 3.157 times risk to be stunted. Many factors contribute to stunting including exclusive breastfeeding and low birth weight.