Fight Stunting, KKP Minister's Servants Invite The Community To Eat Fish Routinely

Favorite Program. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Handling the issue of stunting is actually quite easy for the community to do. One of them is by eating fish regularly.

As stated by the Director General of Strengthening the Competitiveness of Marine and Fishery Products at the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (KKP) Artati Widiarti.

"The community can equip themselves in the fight against stunting. The easiest way is to eat fish, both seawater, freshwater and brackish water," he said, quoted by Antara, Sunday, March 13.

He said that the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries emphasized stunting as a real threat to Indonesian children.

This, he continued, because in addition to potentially slowing brain development, stunting can also have long-term impacts in the form of mental retardation, low learning abilities, and the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.

"We must prevent this together so that the vision of Indonesia Gold 2045 can be realized and truly enjoyed by our children and grandchildren," said Artati.

Artati reminded that the KKP will continue to move to areas that have a high prevalence of stunting by implementing the Gemarikan program.

He revealed, Gemarikan is a stimulus as well as an educational movement about fish consumption so that people know the variety of processed fish as well as being proud and happy to eat fish.

"This movement is a stimulus so that people are fond of and proud to eat fish. That eating fish takes many forms, many preparations, not just fried," he said.

Meanwhile, the Head of the Center for Testing the Application of Marine and Fishery Products KKP Widya Rusyanto explained, during the Fun activity in Banyumas some time ago KKP absorbed fish/processed fish products produced by local MSMEs.

The goal, according to him, is for people to know and be interested in eating fish so that they buy fish and its processed products more often from local fisheries business actors.

Fish has a complete nutritional content and also has an important role in the first 1,000 days of life (1,000 HPK), mainly helping the development of the eyes and brain tissue of children under the age of two, nutritional intake for adolescents of productive age and the elderly.

In addition, fish also contains vitamins and minerals that help increase endurance and immunity, especially at this time to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"By eating fish we will become a generation that is healthy, strong and intelligent," said Artarti.

Nationally, the Gemarikan expansion activity to encourage fish consumption in the community will be carried out in 21 provinces from March 2022 to June 2022, with a total number of packages reaching 55,000 Gemarikan packages.