OPINION| Mothers and caregivers need nutrition education to protect children in food-insecure environment - Health department aims to make healthier food choices easier as part of this year’s National Nutrition Week
. The very poor include particularly African, female-headed and rural households. Nutrition interventions should focus on both over and undernutrition., especially in Africa. The spectrum of undernutrition includes low birth weight, wasting, underweight, stunting and specific micronutrient deficiencies. observed that at national level, 27% of children under the age of five were stunted, 3% wasted, 6% underweight and 13% overweight.
Poor health also contributes to child stunting, with clean water and sanitation considered to be particularly important. Chronic malnutrition increases the risk of infection and death and is linked to poor cognitive development, while improved nutrition may increase future earnings and contribute to substantial poverty reduction.
Lack of nutritional knowledge on child feeding among caregivers contributes significantly to poor dietary practices of children younger than five years of age. A fundamental component of nutrition education within adverse socio-economic environments is to guide people to make the best possible food choices with the little money they have available for purchasing food.
The campaign objective of NNW 2022 is to increase caregivers’ knowledge, skill and self-efficacy to enable the caregiver to choose to practise exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months with the introduction of appropriate and safe complementary foods from six months while breastfeeding continues up to two years and or beyond.
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