Cultural Consideration in Diabetic Mellitus: The Case Study of Gudeg as Traditional Food in Yogyakarta

Food is a cultural product that plays an important role in public health life style. Eating habits contribute 70% to a person's health status (Hadiat, 2013). One of the cause of diabetes mellitus (DM) is food which contains high sugar levels. One of it is gudeg which is a typical food of the Yogyakarta region since the 18th century. Gudeg is made from young jackfruit meat cooked with coconut milk and palm sugar, hence it has a sweet and sour taste. Besides food, gudeg creates social construction systems that have the potential for causing degenerative diseases such as Diabetic Mellitus. Gudeg is also knows as manifestation of community communication that provides information as well as a symbolic process of the health prevention in some communities (Stajcic, 2013). Meanwhile, Yogyakarta has ranked as the highest diabetic mellitus in 2013 and increased in 2018 in prevalence. One of the DM risk factor is the type of food which is often consumed daily as a lifestyle,his study aims to find the relationship between DM risk factors and the culture of food consumption Yogyakarta. The study was conducted with qualitative case study method, literature review approaches, interviews, and also observations. We do believe that we should consider culture as a crucial part of health maintenance of diabetes mellitus in Yogyakarta

Author(s): Adibah Rasikhah Amanto

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