Association between feeding patterns and nutritional status of the under five children (6-59 months) in Mtwara Rural District, Tanzania

Abstract


 This study was conducted to determine the association between feeding pattern and nutritional status of the under-five children in Mtwara rural district. Nutritional assessment information was collected using three survey tools: food frequency survey, 24 hours diet survey and anthropometric assessment survey. Anthropometric measures of weight and height were used to assess the nutritional status and WHO Anthro Plus was used to compute the anthropometric data to obtain Height for Age Z-score, Weight for Age Z-score and Weight for Height Z-score. The questionnaire was administered to mothers / caregivers of 329 children aged 6 -59 months. The children’s feeding patterns were determined using the 24-hour dietary recall. Dietary diversity score was computed to understand the quality of the diet consumed by the children. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20.0 using descriptive statistics. Chi-square was used to determine the association between nutrition status and the independent variables including gender. The findings indicated 41% stunting rate, 18.8% underweight and 7.3% wasting implying poor nutrition. The cassava feeding frequencies varied among households and between and within the two children age groups, (6 – 10 months) and (11-59 months). Overall 87.23% of children (6-59 months) had a feeding frequency of 2 days, 3 days or 6 days in a week. The dietary diversity indicated an average IDDS of 2.5 implying poor diversity of consumed food groups which was similarly far below the target IDDS of 5 established for this study. The results however indicated no significant association (p ≥ 0.05) between cassava consumption pattern and prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight and also between gender and nutrition status. The high prevalence rate of malnutrition could thus be attributed to a synergistic effect of several factors.