Food variety, dietary diversity scores and dietary quality of complementary foods consuming by 6-24 months aged children in Jimma town, southwest Ethiopia
ISSN: 0034-6659
Article publication date: 23 June 2020
Issue publication date: 19 February 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess Food Variety Score (FVS), Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) and dietary quality of collected complementary foods consumed in Jimma town, southwest Ethiopia.
Design/methodology/approach
Multi-stage stratified simple random sampling method was used to identify 384 children who were between 6 to 24 months of age living in Jimma town, Ethiopia. FVS and DDS were assessed based on 24 h recall method. Aliquot of infant’s diet samples were collected from randomly selected 30 household mothers feeding to 6-24 months aged children, and they are combined to get 15 samples by enquiring the ingredients similarly used in preparation. The major nutrients, anti-nutrients were determined with standard procedures. Further, nutrient adequacy and mean adequacy were determined for collected samples.
Findings
Results showed that mean FVS was 7.14 ± 4.07 (range 0 to 18) and DDS was 3.44 ± 1.75 (range 1 to 8). Consumption of diversified diet among the studied population significantly associated with residence areas of children’s (p = 0.001), age of the care taker (p = 0.001), occupation of care takers (p = 0.001), monthly income (p = 0.001), average money spent on food purchase per month (p = 0.001). Average mean adequacy of macronutrients (crude protein, crude fat and carbohydrate) was observed as 0.81, micronutrient (Fe, Ca, Zn) mean adequacy was 0.49 and Vitamin A adequacy was 0.34 for the complementary foods. All the complementary foods were reported mean adequacy of < 1 for macro and micro nutrients.
Originality/value
Studies on dietary diversity and dietary quality of the complementary foods were not documented in Jimma town, Ethiopia. The results of this study are highly useful to understand the complementary foods consumption pattern particularly in dietary diversity and food variety. Moreover, results obtained on dietary quality are very useful to recommend further development in complementary food preparations in the study area.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Authors are highly thankful for College of Agricultural and Veterinary Medicine Jimma University for providing the facilities to complete this research.
Conflict of Interest: The authors declared that they have no conflict of interest.
Citation
Mezgebo, K., Lema, T.B. and Neela, S. (2021), "Food variety, dietary diversity scores and dietary quality of complementary foods consuming by 6-24 months aged children in Jimma town, southwest Ethiopia", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 51 No. 2, pp. 323-344. https://doi.org/10.1108/NFS-02-2020-0033
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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