Abstract:
Under-nutrition is a multifaceted problem and of recent, climate change-related factors are suspected as additional frustration to intervention efforts. A cross sectional study was conducted to determine factors influencing food security, care and environmental quality in a changing weather pattern. Face-to-face household interviews using structured questionnaire and FGD using check lists was conducted. Nutrition status was assessed using anthropometric measurements. A sample comprising 256 households was obtained through multistage random sampling. The prevalence of stunting, underweight and wasting for children below the age of five years were 39, 15 and 1.7% respectively. The prevalence of under-nutrition in women (low BMI) was 5.8% and that of obesity was 7.1%. Factors influencing nutrition security included food consumption level, availability of food in the household, quality of care and sanitation. Food consumption diversity and annual household income variables explained 21% of the observed variation in women BMI. About 32% of observed variation in children’s weight-for-age z-score was explained by income, feeding practices and sanitation. Income was significantly correlated with meal diversity score (r=0.2, p<0.001). Care was characterized by improper infant feeding, insufficient time the mother had for providing quality care due to burden of workload and insufficient support availed by spouses and other household members. Only 12% of children below five years of age were fed more than three meals a day, 32.8% got parents attentive care and 49.7% of men do not provide support to wives during pregnancy. Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding for first 6 months was 16% and nutritional quality of complementary foods was low. A high proportion (63.5%) of mothers observed that breast milk was no longer sufficient for a child above three months. Living environment was unhealthy for most (66%) households; 11% of the households had no toilets; 75% of households do not treat drinking water for safety. Insufficient rainfall was a farming risk for 31.3% of farmers and dry spell was experienced by 32.5%
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of farmers. Insufficient maternal and child care emanating from competing demand on household members’ time coupled with income poverty and low diet diversification were concluded as main factors contributing to under-nutrition. Recently, climate change-related weather pattern has been experienced with negative impact on food productivity, climate change factors of importance according to this data set were delayed onset of rainfall, early ending of rainfall and unexpected dry spells during the rain season. Male involvement in reproductive health education is recommended for improving care and multi-sector collaboration with policy backing to address wide spectrum of malnutrition contributive factors including climate change factors.
