| dc.description.abstract | In Sub-Saharan Africa, one out of ten households is unable to get food with more than three million
children living in households that are severely food insecure. Kenya is among the top 50 countries
in Sub-Saharan Africa that has failed to provide enough food for its people; with a Global Hunger
Index of 21.9 denoting serious severity. Despite several efforts by the Kenyan Government to
resolve household food insecurity, Seme Sub-County still has a higher number of households
reporting lack of food or money to purchase food at 41.9 %. This is higher than the national rates
at 36.2%. This region also has a higher under -five mortality rate at 72 deaths per 1000 live births
as compared to the national rates at 52 deaths per 1000 live births. Despite all these, Seme Sub-
County mothers are still more than 50% likely to practice early introduction of complementary
feeding which predisposes their children to a higher risk of undernutrition (stunting, wasting and
underweight). If these problems persist, then it will result to escalated under-five morbidity and
mortality rates. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to assess household food security
and nutritional status of children aged 1-3 years in Seme Sub-County, Kenya. The specific
objectives were to assess demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the households; to
determine food availability and accessibility of households; to assess child dietary intake, to
determine the child nutritional status and to determine the relationship between dietary intake and
nutritional status of children aged 1-3 years in households in Seme Sub-County, Kenya. The study
was conducted in Seme Sub-County. The study population comprised of mothers/caregivers with
children aged 1-3 years living in Seme Sub-County. The study adopted a descriptive cross
sectional research design. Sample size was determined using Creative Research Systems (2003)
formula. A total of 193 households with children aged 1-3 years were interviewed. Simple random
sampling technique was used to select the study participants. A questionnaire was used to collect
data on socio-demographic characteristics of the household, food availability and accessibility of
the households and food frequency questionnaire to assess dietary intake of the child. Nutritional
status of the child was assessed using anthropometric assessment. Descriptive statistics was used
to summarize each of the specific objectives. Multiple linear regression was used to determine the
relationship between dietary intake and nutritional status of children aged 1-3 years. Most children
were stunted at (38.9%) denoting chronic malnutrition and long term food deprivation in Seme;
others were underweight at (16.1%) and few were wasted at (8.8%). These rates are higher than
the national Kenyan rates where stunting is at 26%; wasting is at 4% and underweight is at 11%.
The high rates might be attributed to most mothers in Seme practicing early introduction of
complementary feeding predisposing their children to under nutrition (stunting, underweight,
wasting); poor consumption of Vitamin A rich vegetables and tubers (15.6%) by the children and
most households reporting lack of food or money to purchase food at 41.9% which is still higher
than the national Kenyan rate which is at 36.2%. Further, there was a statistically significant
relationship between stunting and low dietary diversity, p=0.02 in children aged 1-3 years with
chances of being stunted increasing by 12 in children aged 1-3 years consuming a lowly
diversified diet holding moderate diet diversity and high dietary diversity constant,
β(95%CI)=12(11.92,12.08). This denoted that a child who ate a lowly diversified diet was most
likely to be stunted. Therefore, there is need for possible targeted and sustainable interventions to
be done to cease early introduction of complementary feeding, promote household food security
and improve consumption of a highly diversified diet by the children in Seme. | en_US |
