Socio-cultural influences on children's feeding habits and feeding frequencies in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso: a retrospective survey

BACKGROUND

From 6 months of age, children need, in addition to breast milk, a complementary food whose nutritional composition meets their needs. However, low consumption of child-specific foods in favor of adult foods has been documented. Thus, the lack of adaptation of children to family feeding conditions has been the source of frequent malnutrition in some low-income countries. In Burkina Faso, little data is available on family-type food consumption by children. The objective was to describe the socio-cultural influences on feeding habits and food consumption frequencies of infants aged 6-23 months in Ouagadougou.

METHODS

The study was conducted from March to June 2022 using a structured questionnaire. A reminder of the previous 24 h' meals was used to assess 618 children's food consumption. Mother-child pairs were selected using the simple random sampling method, and data collection was done by the interview method. Sphinx V5, IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 and XLSTAT 2016 software were used to process data.

RESULTS

Influences between the consumption of certain foods and the mother's social status were observed. The most consumed foods are simple porridges (67.48%), Tô/rice (65.70%), cookies and cakes (62.94%), juices and sweetened drinks (62.94%). Cowpeas (17.31%), improved porridge (13.92%) and eggs (6.63%) are the least consumed. The most meals frequency was three meals daily (33.98%), and children with the minimum daily meal frequency were 86.41%. Principal component analysis showed that the mother's social status influenced the consumption of imported infant flours, fish soups, fruits, juices and sweetened drinks, cookies and cakes, simple porridge, and tô/rice. Concerning the consumption of local infant porridges, 55.72% of the children who consumed them appreciated positively. However, for 57.75% of the parents, the lack of information limits the consumption rate of this type of flour.

CONCLUSION

High consumption of family-type meals was observed and was influenced by parental social status. In addition, the rate of acceptable meal frequencies was generally high.

Effective Factors on Acute Malnutrition in Children Aged 6 to 59 Months in the Centre-West Region of Burkina Faso

Background: In Burkina Faso, malnutrition is a public health problem. Despite the significant drop in the prevalence of malnutrition since 2009 according to the Directorate of Nutrition, malnutrition is still a major concern with regard to its consequences. The objective of this study was to determine the factors associated with acute malnutrition in children aged 6 to 59 months in the Sabou Health District, Burkina Faso. Methods: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study conducted among 343 children aged 6 to 59 months in Sabou Health District, Burkina Faso from August 1st to 30th, 2016. Factors associated with acute malnutrition were dietary factors, family factors, environmental factors, and infectious factors determined using SPSS version 21.0 software. The difference was statistically significant for P-value of less than 0.05. Results: The prevalence of global acute malnutrition in the district was 9.0%, of which 2.6% was severe according to the Brachial Perimeter. Several factors were associated with acute malnutrition in children under 5 years of age in the Sabou health district. Indeed, morbidity was a factor associated with acute malnutrition in children with a P-value of 0.007. The low dietary diversity experienced by food-insecure households was also associated with acute malnutrition in children. Infant and young child feeding practices, i.e., inadequate introduction of complementary foods and low dietary diversity to children were among the factors associated with nutritional status (P = 0.007). Among mothers, 87.5% had heard of malnutrition, 66.5% did not recognize the signs of malnourished in their children, and 92.4% were unaware of the consequences of malnutrition. Conclusion: Based on the results, initiatives and programmes should be established for women, the bearers of life, to enhance their empowerment and educate them with regard to the integral growth of children, the builders of tomorrow.