Feeding practices and nutrient content of complementary meals in rural central Tanzania: implications for dietary adequacy and nutritional status

BMC Pediatrics, Nov 2015

Background Stunting and micronutrient deficiencies are significant health problems among infants and young children in rural Tanzania. Objective of the study was to assess feeding practices, nutrient content of complementary meals, and their implications for dietary adequacy and nutritional status. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in six randomly selected villages in Mpwapwa District, Tanzania during the post-harvest season. Information on feeding practices, dietary consumption and anthropometric measurements of all infants below the age of one year were collected. Forty samples of common meals were collected and analysed for proximate composition, iron, zinc and calcium. Results were expressed per 100 g dry weight. Results Energy, protein and fat content in porridge ranged from 40.67–63.92 kcal, 0.54–1.74 % and 0.30-2.12 %, respectively. Iron, zinc and calcium contents (mg/100 g) in porridge were 0.11–2.81, 0.10–3.23, and 25.43-125.55, respectively. Median portion sizes were small (porridge: 150–350 g; legumes and meats: 39–90 g). Very few children (6.67 %) consumed animal-source foods. Low meal frequency, low nutrient content, small portion size and limited variety reduced the contribution of meals to daily nutritional needs. Conclusions Findings of the study highlight inadequate feeding practices, low nutritional quality of meals and high prevalence of stunting. Feasible strategies are needed to address the dietary inadequacies and chronic malnutrition of rural infants.

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Feeding practices and nutrient content of complementary meals in rural central Tanzania: implications for dietary adequacy and nutritional status

Kulwa et al. BMC Pediatrics Feeding practices and nutrient content of complementary meals in rural central Tanzania: implications for dietary adequacy and nutritional status Kissa B. M. Kulwa 0 1 Peter S. Mamiro 0 Martin E. Kimanya 2 Rajab Mziray 4 Patrick W. Kolsteren 1 3 0 Department of Food Science and Technology, Sokoine University of Agriculture , P.O. Box 3006 Chuo Kikuu, Morogoro , Tanzania 1 Department of Food Safety and Food Quality, Ghent University , Coupure Links 653, 9000 Ghent , Belgium 2 Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology , P.O. Box 447, Arusha , Tanzania 3 Department of Public Health, Institute of Tropical Medicine , Nationalestraat 155, 2000 Antwerp , Belgium 4 Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority , P.O. Box 77150, Dar-es-Salaam , Tanzania Background: Stunting and micronutrient deficiencies are significant health problems among infants and young children in rural Tanzania. Objective of the study was to assess feeding practices, nutrient content of complementary meals, and their implications for dietary adequacy and nutritional status. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in six randomly selected villages in Mpwapwa District, Tanzania during the post-harvest season. Information on feeding practices, dietary consumption and anthropometric measurements of all infants below the age of one year were collected. Forty samples of common meals were collected and analysed for proximate composition, iron, zinc and calcium. Results were expressed per 100 g dry weight. Results: Energy, protein and fat content in porridge ranged from 40.67-63.92 kcal, 0.54-1.74 % and 0.30-2.12 %, respectively. Iron, zinc and calcium contents (mg/100 g) in porridge were 0.11-2.81, 0.10-3.23, and 25.43-125.55, respectively. Median portion sizes were small (porridge: 150-350 g; legumes and meats: 39-90 g). Very few children (6.67 %) consumed animal-source foods. Low meal frequency, low nutrient content, small portion size and limited variety reduced the contribution of meals to daily nutritional needs. Conclusions: Findings of the study highlight inadequate feeding practices, low nutritional quality of meals and high prevalence of stunting. Feasible strategies are needed to address the dietary inadequacies and chronic malnutrition of rural infants. Tanzania; Complementary foods; Feeding practices; Energy; Iron; Zinc - Background Widespread undernutrition in low-income countries continues to exert enormous cost in terms of survival among infants and young children [1, 2]. Chronic undernutrition (defined as stunting) and micronutrient deficiencies are significant health problems among infants and young children in Tanzania. Prevalence of stunting among children aged 6–59 months in the 2005 and 2010 national surveys was 37.7 % and 42 %, respectively [3, 4]. Children in rural areas were more affected than their urban counterparts. Coexistence of micronutrient deficiencies with undernutrition has been demonstrated in cross-sectional studies [5, 6]. National data has also shown inadequate consumption of micronutrient-rich foods. Proportion of children (6–35 months-old) who consumed iron-rich foods was 29.8 %, whereas that of vitamin A-rich foods was 61.5 % [4]. Inadequate dietary intakes and poor feeding practices directly affect the nutritional status of children in the country. This situation is aggravated by household food insecurity. Households in rural Tanzania depend on rain-fed, small subsistence farming for their livelihoods. Rainfall variability (e.g. timing, amount, frequency, patterns), widespread in semi-arid areas of the country, affects the timing of crop harvests and amount of food stocks in © 2015 Kulwa et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. central regions (Dodoma, Singida). Dwindling food stocks, increasing food prices and seasonal shifting of maternal workload towards casual labour are apparent during the post-harvest season [7]. It was reported that 45–55 % of households in central regions were food insecure in 2006, whereas over one-third of households with tenuous access to food were reported in 2010 [7]. Proportion of households receiving food aid in Dodoma was 66.6 %. These challenges demonstrate that many households in Dodoma are vulnerable to food insecurity. This situation provided a context in which to evaluate the extent to which household dietary vulnerability modifies feeding practices, diets and nutritional status (...truncated)


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Kissa Kulwa, Peter Mamiro, Martin Kimanya, Rajab Mziray, Patrick Kolsteren. Feeding practices and nutrient content of complementary meals in rural central Tanzania: implications for dietary adequacy and nutritional status, BMC Pediatrics, 2015, pp. 171, 15, DOI: 10.1186/s12887-015-0489-2