Low dietary diversity is associated with stunting among children aged 8-23 months in stunting locus area, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

<p align="center"><strong> </strong></p><p><strong><em>Background: </em></strong><em>Stunting is impaired growth and development that children experience, caused by poor nutrition during 1000 days of life</em><em>. Dietary diversity is one of the core indicators for assessing diet quality and adequacy of complementary feeding.</em></p><p><strong><em>Objectives: </em></strong><em>This study aimed to analyzed the relationship between dietary </em><em>d</em><em>iversity and </em><em>st</em><em>unting among children aged 8-23 months in Pajangan District, Bantul Regency, Yogyakarta.</em></p><p><strong><em>Methods: </em></strong><em>This was a quantitative observational cross-sectional study. Purposive random sampling was used to recruit a total of 167 children aged 8-23 months with their mothers/ caregivers as respondents. Individual dietary diversity was assessed by minimum dietary diversity with the consumption of 5 or more food groups of the total 7 food groups. Logistic regression, chi-square test, and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis.</em></p><p><strong><em>Results: </em></strong><em>Results showed that prevalence of stunting was 32.3% and 54.5% of children did not meet the minimum dietary diversity. There was a significant relationship between dietary diversity on complementary feeding and stunting (p=0.005, OR=2.558; 95%CI= 1.422-4.142). Furthermore, other factors related to dietary diversity were child’s age, mother's employment status</em><em>,</em><em> father's education, father’s employment, and family income.</em><em></em></p><p><strong><em>Conclusions: </em></strong><em>There was a relationship between dietary diversity and stunting among children aged 8-23 months in </em><em>Pajangan District, Bantul Regency</em><em>, Yogyakarta. Strategy to improve dietary diversity on complementary feeding are needed to prevent child malnutrition.</em></p><p><em> </em></p><p><strong>KEYWORDS</strong><strong><em>: </em></strong><em><em>complementary feeding; </em></em><em>d</em><em>ietary diversity</em><em>; stunting</em></p>