The impact of a nutrition education programme on the anthropometric nutritional status of low-income children in South Africa

Abstract

Objective: The study determined the impact of a community-based nutrition education programme, using trained community nutrition advisors, on the anthropometric nutritional status of mixed-race children aged between 2 and 5 years. Design and setting: The programme was implemented over two years in four study areas in the Free State and Northern Cape Provinces. Two control areas were included to differentiate between the effect of the education programme and a food aid programme that were implemented simultaneously. Weight-for-age, height-forage and weight-for-height were summarised using standard deviations from the NCHS reference median. For each of the indicators, the difference in the percentage of children below minus two standard deviations from the reference NCHS median in the initial and follow-up surveys was determined. Subjects: Initially 536 children were measured and, after two years of intervention, 815. Results: Weight-for-age improved in all areas, but only significantly in boys and girls in the urban study area, and in boys in one rural study area. No significant improvement in height-for-age occurred in any area. Weight-for-height improved significantly in the urban study area. Conclusion: The education programme in combination with food aid succeeded in improving the weight status of children, but was unable to facilitate catch-up growth in stunted children after two years of intervention.

Outcomes of nutrition knowledge and healthy food choices in 5- to 6-year-old children who received a nutrition intervention based on Piaget's theory

“…The difference between body mass indexes of the children after the education did not differ significantly between the experimental and control groups (Table 4). Walsh et al. (2002) stated that no significant difference was observed in children's height‐for‐age and that the rate of severe underweight decreased from 45.5% to 23.9%.…”

Stunting in children (0–59 months): what is the current trend in South Africa?

“…Since then several national surveys have been published, indicating that the stunting trend was being assessed regularly (Faber & Benade, 2007;Smuts et al, 2008;Walsh, Dannhauser, & Joubert, 2002). Both the National Income Dynamic Survey (NIDS) in 2008 and the South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES) in 2013 indicated decreases in stunting, but the most recent data from the latter survey indicated increased stunting in children aged 0-3 years (Shisana, Labadarios, Rehle, Simbayi, & Zuma, 2014;Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2012).…”

Determinants of nutrition improvement in a large-scale urban project: a follow-up study of children participating in the Senegal Community Nutrition Project

“…We could thus assume that the nutrition improvement observed among children who participated in the CNP was mainly due to a reduction in the prevalence of low weight-for-height. Moreover, an absence of recovery could be explained by severely underweight children but, also, by low height-for-age index, a problem that probably cannot be solved in the time scale of an intervention such as the CNP 21 . In such a case, results on the effectiveness of the CNP or the effect of initial WA value should be interpreted with care.…”