| dc.description.abstract | Introduction: The nutrition status of children of less than five years is an important determinant to child growth and development. Poor nutrition status contributes to child morbidity and mortality as a result of poor feeding practices, child care, and agricultural practices. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2012, 870 million people in the world do not have enough to eat and the vast majority of hungry people 98% live in developing countries, where almost 15% of the population is undernourished and over 28 percent of all deaths in Africa. In Uganda, there has been an increase in stunting from 39% in 2006 to 47% in 2011, underweight is 17% in 2011 and wasting is 8% and prevalence of anemia is 50% among children under five (UDHS 2011).
Objective: The study aimed to assess the influence of household commercial sugarcane growing on the nutritional status of children below the age of five in Namutumba district.
Methodology: A case-control study design was used to compare (cases) households growing sugar cane and (controls) not growing households growing sugar cane and how this is associated with the nutrition status of children. Collected quantitative data from 390 participants (130 cases and 260 controls) using questionnaires, while the qualitative data was collected through 8 Focus
Group Discussions and 9 Key Informer Interviews. The quantitative data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) while the qualitative data was analyzed manually using a Manifest Content Analysis method, presented in verbatim.
Results: The study findings showed that the prevalence of stunting was critically high (56.9%) among the cases greater than the WHO recommended levels of stunting of 20% and national level of 47% (UDHS 2011). From further analysis (multivariate) with logistic regression, the 5variables that had significant association with the nutrition status of children among cases were
age of the head of the household (p<0.040), children above 25 months (p<0.013) frequency of breast feeding (p<0.013), frequency of complementary feeding (p<0.046), land size by acreage (less than one acre with p<0.008 with and (with 2-3 acres 0.035 with p<0.035 and common
diseases like measles (p<0.014), and skin diseases (p<0.006) and where households where accessing the health facilities (p<0.043). The common staples associated with poor nutrition status included matooke and other plantain (<0.012) and porridge, bread, rice, millet, maize and other grains (p<0.004.) while among the controls were frequency of breast feeding (breastfed only once a day with p<0.022) and land size (2-3 acres p<0.020).
Conclusions and Recommendations: Therefore, there is need to develop and enforce bi-laws that limit sugar cane growing in relation to the size of land household members, train health workers on nutrition interventions to support households make informed decisions, Support mothers with complementary feeding practices, diet diversification, strengthen the control and coverage for measles, skin diseases and deworming and support farmers with knowledge of
growing variety of food and control commercialization of foods grown at household level and improve land ownership practices. | en_US |
