Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences
Open Access

Abstract

Dietary Diversity Feeding Practice and Determinants among Children Aged 6-23 Months in Kemba Woreda, Southern Ethiopia Implication for Public Health Intervention

Eskezyiaw Agedew Gatahun and Direselign Misker Abyu

Dietary diversity has been recognized early by nutritionists as a key element of high quality diets. It is associated with overall quality and nutrient adequacy of the diet in low-income countries including Ethiopia.

Objective: To assess dietary diversity feeding practice and associated factors among 6-23 months young child in Kamba Woreda 2014.

Methods: Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on mothers who had young child from 6 to 23 months. Exploratory data analysis method was done to check missing values, potential outliers and normality distribution for continuous variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted by SPSS version 20 to identify significant predictors based on p-value less than 0.05 with 95% confidence level.

Results: Of the interviewed mothers who had a child aged 6-23 months 131 (23.3%) fed their child four or more varieties of foods from seven food groups within 24 hours preceding the survey. The dominant food groups they fed their child were grain and legumes but they had low practice of animal source and vitamin source feeding. Place of delivery, those who gave birth at Health facility Adjusted odd ratio 4.45 (2.08-9.54), Growth monitoring in health facility 2.28 (1.33-3.89), those who has access to cow milk 2.01 (1.19-3.37), and those who work in home as housewives 2.50 (1.23-4.93) were significant identified factors for minimum dietary diversity feeding practice.

Conclusion and Recommendation: Global infant and young child feeding practice guide line is being implemented in Ethiopia for more than a decade; however, dietary diversity feeding practice of mothers is poor in study site. Focusing on appropriate mixed feeding practice platforms should be developed and messages disseminated to the target audience via different media to enhance dietary diversity feeding practice. Integrating agricultural sectors with health sectors is important to support the family to grow vegetables, fruits and rare animals to improve dietary diversity.