The Relationship Between Mother’s Characteristic with Dietary Diversity among Children Under Two Years Old in Cirebon Regency During COVID-19 Pandemic

A mother has a crucial role in providing complementary feeding to support the growth and development of her children. By providing various food type are expected to be able to meet the children's nutritional requirements in order to avoid any occurrence of  nutritional problems. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between mother's characteristics and the dietary diversity given to children under two years old during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is a cross sectional study by applying secondary data. It involved 44 children aged 6-23 months who were selected by non-probability sampling technique. The data used in this study included the characteristic of the mother (age, education, occupation, family size, and family income) and data of dietary diversity given to children under two years old. Then, data were analyzed to see any relationship between mother’s characteristics and dietary diversity of children by employing Spearman tests. The results showed that 77.3% had met the minimum amount of dietary diversity and 22.7% have not met the requirements. The final result of the Spearman test showed that there was no relationship between the characteristics of mothers and the dietary diversity of children under two years old (p>0.05). Consumption variety foods are highly recommended to fulfill the nutritional requirements of children under two years old