Child Feeding Practices in Families of Working and Nonworking Mothers of Indonesian Middle Class Urban Families: What Are the Problems?

Abstract

This study aims to explore the feeding practices in families of working and nonworking mothers with children (aged 12–36 months) of different nutritional status and types of domestic caregiver in Indonesian urban middle class families. It was designed as a qualitative multiple case study. Mothers and caregivers from 26 families were interviewed in depth, and caregivers were categorized as family and domestic-paid caregivers. The result suggested that offering formula milk to young children was a common practice, and there was a high recognition and familiarity toward a range of formula milk brands. Mothers reported challenges in encouraging their children to eat, and in some cases they appeared to lack knowledge on overcoming their child's feeding problem. The findings suggested the need to address the child feeding problems experienced by mothers in order to overcome the double burden of child nutrition in Indonesia.

Keywords:

• child feeding
• working mothers
• Indonesia
• child nutrition

Acknowledgments

The study is supported by Research Grant IN205 funded by The Neys-van Hoogstraten Foundation and an Australian Development Scholarship for PhD program from AUSAID.

We thank Dr. Megan Jennaway for the invaluable inputs during the development of the research design as well as the initial data analysis, Amalini Aulia for administration assistance during the data collection process, Dr. Andrea Whittaker for reading the draft and providing critical comments to the article, and Emily Dickson for proofreading the manuscript.

Notes

¹ Number: 2008001087.

² Number: 294/PT02.FK/ETIK/2008.