Dietary Diversity Practice and Associated Factors among Children Aged 6–23 Months in Robe Town, Bale Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

<jats:p><jats:italic>Background</jats:italic>. Diet diversification is essential to prepare adequate food that is useful for children’s physical and cognitive development. Despite the limited studies performed in different parts of Ethiopia, the information about the feeding practice of children in the current study area is not documented. Thus, this study intended to assess the dietary diversity practices and associated factors among children aged 6–23 months. <jats:italic>Methods</jats:italic>. Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 517 children aged 6–23 months paired with their mothers in Robe town. Systematic sampling technique was applied to select a child-mother pair. Data were collected using a pretested and structured questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify the factors associated with the dependent variable. Adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence interval were used to assess the strength of association and level of significance. <jats:italic>Results</jats:italic>. From a total of 508 children included, making a 98% response rate, 77% of them did not meet the minimum dietary diversity. Children aged 12–23 months were more likely fed diversified food when compared with those aged 6–11 months (AOR = 2.99). Mothers whose educational level was secondary and above (AOR = 3.21), had media exposure (AOR = 3.99), and were knowledgeable about diet diversification (AOR = 8.5) were more likely to feed their child diversified food than their counterpart. Children whose father was a merchant were more likely to receive a diversified diet compared to those whose fathers were daily laborers. <jats:italic>Conclusions</jats:italic>. Inadequate practices of minimum dietary diversity observed in the current study area were mainly associated with the child’s age, maternal education, mothers’ knowledge on diet diversification, and media exposure. Improving knowledge of mothers, increasing their education, and promoting appropriate infant and child feeding practices through media are an important intervention to improve dietary diversity practices.</jats:p>

Only one in four lactating mothers met the minimum dietary diversity score in the pastoral community, Afar region, Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study

“…In the present study, the overall minimum dietary diversity among lactating mothers was 23⋅6 % (95 % CI 19 %, 28 %). The present study finding is similar to the study revealed in Oromia 23 % ( 13 ) .…”

Exploring Spatial Variations and Determinants of Dietary Diversity Among Children in Ethiopia: Spatial and Multilevel Analysis Using EDHS (2011–2016)

“…The design and development of the conceptual framework for the study were guided by the literature review for factors that are associated with children's DD. 3,[7][8][9]12,13,15,[17][18][19][20][21] These cover factors related to child, maternal, household, and community characteristics that impact children's diet. The main exposure variables were wealth, household food insecurity access, mother's marital status, family size, maternal age, maternal education, maternal occupation, child sex, child age in a month, paternal education, paternal occupation, and child's place of birth order.…”

“…16 In Ethiopia, there is an improvement in the proportion of children who meet the MDD, 6.3% in 2005 to 13.5% in 2016; 17 however, the levels remain unacceptably low. Previous research has revealed factors connected to children's DD such as mother's age, maternal educational level, 12,18 marital status, maternal occupation, 19 ANC visit, residence, region, child's gender, birthing sequence, childbirth interval, child's age, 18 number of under-5 children, 19 currently breastfeeding, paternal educational status, household wealth status, 12,20 family size, desire for pregnancy, media exposure, antenatal and postnatal care. 17,21 Many public health measures have been carried out across Ethiopia to improve the culture of DD and the nutritional status of children.…”

Optimization of nutritional and functional qualities of local complementary foods of southern Ethiopia using a customized mixture design

“…Achieving dietary diversity is a major challenge among resource‐poor settings in the developing world (Bedada et al 2020; Bosha et al. 2019), particularly for children in rural Ethiopian households (Girma et al, 2015).…”