Demographic Factors and the Risk of Malnutrition and Nutrition for Less at Three Different Communities in West Sumatra

This study discussed the problem of malnutrition at three communities in West Sumatra, namely; urban community, fishery community and farming community. Data of this study were obtained by doing field study toward 572 families which were selected or chosen by using purposive random sampling technique. The result of studying on the evaluation of the status of nutrition of children under five years. Showed its implication (1) there were still many children under five years who have malnutrition in West Sumatra. Where the prevalence of malnutrition of about 17.6 persen and less nutrition about 14 persen, (2) poverty and the level of education of parents were main factors making less than five years children have malnutrition. This polemic becomes complex when the intervention of government for the poverty is weak so that poverty especially at fishery, urban and traditional farming community is not able to bring change on the welfare of society and this has implication for the existence of malnutrition for under five years children. In this case, systematic effort is needed to integrate the program for overcoming poverty and program for providing food in order to be able to minimize the risk of malnutrition in society