Malnutrition and anaemia reduce physical fitness and productivity. Correcting the Hb level of workers are expected to improve worker's human resource and productivity. This in turn, will bring mutual benefits both to the producers and to development overall. A study on "The effect of food supplementation on anemic women workers to improve productivity", has been carried out. The subjects of study were the workers of traditional herbal medicine factory with Hb levels below 12.0 gr/dl assigned in production section doing their work manually. The subjects were divided into three groups using simple random sampling. The first group was given supplementary food; the second was treated with supplementary food and iron pills once a week, and the third was placebo group as a control. Supplementary food was given in the form of snack with energy content of 300 kcal, the amount to compensate the energy deficit (based on baseline data collected before), which was given five times per week within four months. The iron pill was ferrous sulfate with dose of 60 mg once a week also for four months. The results of the study can be summarized as follows; The group with supplementary food containing of300 kcal for four months shows similar result with the placebo group in terms of nutrition status, Hb level and productivity.The group treated with supplementary food and weekly iron pill results in increase in Hb level and productivity significantly (p<0.05).Productivity of the first group increases by 154 packs/hour/person, while the second group, productivity increases by 164 packs/hour/person, and placebo group is 124 packs/hour/person.
