Milk Assessed Most Effectively Improve Nutrition

Nutrition issue is a national problem that can only be handled through cooperation between various stakeholders. This needs to be a concern given that Indonesia should continue to foster competitiveness of human resources that can compete in regional and global level.

Deputy Minister of PPN / Head of Bappenas Human Development, Society, and Culture, Subandi Sardjoko, stated that the double nutrition burden is a challenge for Indonesian human resources. These challenges can appear in various stages of the life cycle and are very influential to the competitiveness of Indonesians.

For example, the impact of nutritional problems that arise at an early age is not limited to the child's nutritional status at that time alone, such as short-bodied children, obese children or malnourished children. These impacts will then be associated with lower risk of intelligence and the risk of non-communicable diseases when the child is in adulthood.

"For that reason the existence of affordable food and nutrition sources will greatly help the community improve their nutritional quality," said Subandi to Republika.co.id, in Jakarta. According to him, the availability of good nutritious food products at affordable prices will greatly assist most people in the middle of limited purchasing power.

Improving the nutrition of the people through affordable nutrient intake is believed to be effective in increasing and maintaining the Human Development Index (IPM) in Indonesia which has just entered the High category. In April 2017, Central Bureau of Statistics released HDI Indonesia in 2016 amounted to 70.18 or up 0.63 points compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Center for Nutrition and Health Studies Faculty of Public Health University of Indonesia (FKM UI), Ahmad Syafiq, added, one of the important sources of nutrition for the community is milk. The existence of affordable milk will greatly assist in improving the nutrition of the community on a wide scale.

He explains, milk becomes one of the nutritional products that can produce energy to survive. The metabolic pathway is determined by the nutrients described to produce that energy. "This energy is needed by the body to produce new proteins, nucleic acids, DNA, and others," Ahmad said.

However, like other sugar-containing products which in fact is a source of energy, milk consumption by society should still be balanced with a healthy lifestyle. For example, with diligent exercise, maintain hygiene and maintain ideal body weight.

Chairman of the Joint Milk Cooperative Indonesia, Ahmad Syafiq, added that in today's modern society not only served fresh milk as one of the products. "A number of fresh dairy products such as butter, yogurt, ice cream, cheese, sweetened condensed milk, milk powder can also be a consumer choice," he said.