Developing and Testing the Acceptability of Therapeutic Food for the Management of Severely Malnourished Children

Abstract

Therapeutic foods for the treatment of malnutrition in children under age 5 years are mostly imported from developed countries by developing countries like Ghana. This comes with huge cost and puts pressure on health authorities when these supplies are limited. The objective of this study was therefore to develop and evaluate therapeutic food made from locally agricultural produce (banana, coconut water, soybean, sugar and vegetable oil) for the management of severely acute malnutrition in children under age 5 years. The proximate, mineral and microbial analyses were conducted on the developed product to ensure the standard falls within the requirement of WHO Protocol for the treatment of malnutrition in children. Sensory analysis was also done on the product using children under five years as the target group. The chemical analysis of product revealed energy and protein content of 95.96 kcal and 1.61 g per 100 g respectively, and percentage concentration of Calcium (0.74), Magnesium (1.09), Potassium (4.79), Sodium (0.17), Phosphorus (0.28), Iron (0.0080), Copper (0.0064), Manganese (0.0089) and Zinc (0.0174). The microbiological examination indicated aerobic plate count (20 cfu/mL), yeast count (8.5 cfu/mL), coliform count (3 cfu/mL) and zero count for both mould and E. Coli. This shows that, the developed product has the potential of treating malnutrition effectively in children under five years old.