Abstract
BackgroundHigh prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years poses a major threat to child development in developing countries. It is associated with micronutrient deficiency arising from poor diets fed to children under 5 years. Food fortification is amongst the interventions focused at reducing the incidence of stunting in children under 5 years.MethodsUsing a large-scale household data from Zimbabwe, we investigated the gender-based importance of household adoption of food fortification on the proportion of stunted children in the household. We employed propensity score matching to mitigate self-selection bias associated with household adoption of food fortification.ResultsWe offer three major findings. Firstly, we find statistically weak evidence that female headed households are more likely to adopt food fortification than their male counterparts. Secondly, food fortification reduces the proportion of stunted children in the household. Finally, in comparison to non-adopters, female headed households that adopt food fortification are more able to reduce the proportion of stunted children in their households than their male counterparts.ConclusionThe results highlight the need for policy makers to actively promote food fortification, as such interventions are likely to contribute to the reduction of stunting and to involve men in fortification interventions to improve on their knowledge and appreciation of fortified foods and the associated benefits.
Highlights
High prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years poses a major threat to child development in developing countries
We address the aforementioned gaps in the literature by examining the gender attributes of the impact of household adoption of food fortification on the proportion of stunted children in the household using the 2018 nationally representative sample of 25,297 Zimbabwean households surveyed by the Food and Nutrition Council of Zimbabwe (FNC)
Differences in background characteristics by food fortification adoption status of the household On the basis of whether the household head had ever heard about fortified foods, Table 1 shows the differences in the background characteristics of the sample households by the food fortification status of the household
Summary
High prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years poses a major threat to child development in developing countries. It is associated with micronutrient deficiency arising from poor diets fed to children under 5 years. Poor complementary diets after 6 months indicate that the entire 1000 days the Zimbabwean child thrives in an environment that lacks iron, calcium, vitamin A, and high-quality protein [25]. These are all linked to stunting in the Zimbabwean setting
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