Imut integration program: increasing household dietary diversity to reduce stunting in mandailing natal regency

Purpose: Increasing dietary diversity by ensuring household dietary availability is required,
especially for children’s health. We investigated the impact of IMUT integration program in
household’s dietary diversity conducted at two stunting locus of North Sumatera Province,
Indonesia.
Patients and methods: IMUT integration program was conducted in Huta Godang and Tolang,
villages at Ulu Pungkut District, Mandailing Natal Regency in 2022. This quasi experimental study
consisted of intervention and control group, each consisted of 4 dasawisma and a total of 80
toddlers were recruited through purposive sampling. Assessment of dietary diversity was
conducted using an open questionnaire in SSGI 2021.
Results: Substantial increase in diversified food intake was found following the implementation of
IMUT program (p = 0.003). Prior to the implementation of IMUT, 28% of households participating
in this study were not educated in providing diversified dietary intake, the proportion greatly
reduced to just 9% after the program.
Conclusion: IMUT integration program successfully increases household dietary diversity and
serves as impactful educational platform for families. We suggest that this program may even be
reproduced in other regions, especially those with similar stunting burden.