Household Food Insecurity and Dietary Intake among Women and Children in Rural Uganda

Abstract

Household food security has been used to screen participants and evaluate program effectiveness for an agriculture and economic development project implemented by Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns (VEDCO) in Kamuli District, eastern Uganda.ObjectivesThis study was conducted to investigate dietary intake patterns and anthropometry as they relate to household food security among program participants.MethodsStratified random sampling was used to select 70 households with children under the age of 6 yrs within six geographic parishes, and dietary intake (24 hour recall) and anthropometry were measured on female caregivers (n = 70) and children under the age of six (n = 127).ResultsPrevalence of HAZ≤−2.0 in children was 28.6% and 29.5% of the caregivers were overweight (BMI≥25.0). Lower household food security and lower absolute wealth index were related to increased dietary fiber intake in the women and children (p<0.05), and decreased lipid intake in women (p<0.05) in bivariate analysis.ConclusionsChanges in dietary quality with increased household food insecurity demonstrate household level strategies in the face of insecurity. These results will be used in the planning and evaluation of nutrition‐focused interventions in Kamuli and beyond. Research Support: The Wilbur G. Downs International Student Health Travel Fellowship and the Office of Student Research at the Yale School of Medicine.