Relationship between diet and nutritional status of children below the age of 5 years in railway Kasoli Tororo municipality Uganda

Abstract

Introduction: Several studies made on nutrition status of children in Uganda have given high percentages of malnutrition in the children. This has proved to be a serious problem in Uganda and several sub Saharan countries Highest rate of malnutrition recorded in slums in Uganda has attributed to several problems such as high rate of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and many others. In this research carried out in Tororo district in Railway Kasoli quarters the aim is to find out the effect on the diet of the children and feeding practices on the nutritional status of the children below the age of five The total number of children in the study was 11 Methodology. The data was collected using a questionnaire covering the background information of the parents and their children, social economic status, feeding habits, access to health care services From the statistics by Uganda nutrition profile USAID, 2015) children under five; 33% of the children are stunted, 14% are underweight & 5% are wasting, feeding habits Nutritional status of the children was determined using anthropometric measurements. ENA software was used to compute Weight-for- age (WAZ), Height-for-age (HAZ), and Weight-for-height (WHZ) zscores. MINITAB was used to present descriptive statistics (Mean, Standard Deviation, and Frequencies). Results: From the results above, the most consumed foods were Maize, beans, pig weed “dodo” ground nuts and cow milk with a percentage as high 90-100%. Followed by the root tubers. It was noticeable that there was a relatively low level of dietary diversity especially in fruits due to factors such as low household income and poverty causing deficiency in vitamins. Stunting was the most prevalent malnutrition issue noted especially in the girls in all food types with yams, matooke and Irish potatoes having 100% of the girls severely stunted while the rest were normal 27.3% of the children were still breastfeeding while 72.7% of the children had already been weaned and 100% of these stopping to breast feed at about 2 years’ old All children in the study had their immunization cards available with 63.6% having complete their immunization and 36.6% incomplete All members who participated in this study had accessed nutritional health and training in the past 6 months especially through prenatal and post-natal visits to health centers. Conclusion: According to the results high levels of malnutrition were observed in children that had a high frequency of foods such as matooke, Irish potatoes, sukuma, rice and peas exhibited by the severe stunting in the girls averaging above 75% food types with high frequency such as maize, beans. Cow milk and had an overall good nutrition of average 84% of all the children normal.