Effect of Household Food Insecurity on the Nutritional Status of Children under Five in North Kassala; Kassala State, Eastern Sudan

Mohamed Abd alrazik Desogi^1, , Fatima Abbas Khalid², Awadia Khojali Mohamed³, Asma Mahmoud Hamza⁴, Sarah Salih Mohammed⁵, Abdualmoniem Omer Abdalla⁶, Isameldin Mustafa Mohamed⁷, Mahgoub Ali Adam¹ and Abdalla Ali Mohammed³

¹Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Kassala, Kassala, Sudan

²Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Kassala, Kassala, Sudan

³Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine& Health Sciences, University of Kassala, Kassala, Sudan

⁴Department of Biology, Faculty of Education, University of Kassala, Kassala, Sudan

⁵Department of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine & health Sciences, University of Kassala, Kassala, Sudan

⁶Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Kassala, Kassala, Sudan

⁷Department of Geography, Faculty of Education, University of Kassala, Kassala, Sudan

Cite this paper

Mohamed Abd alrazik Desogi, Fatima Abbas Khalid, Awadia Khojali Mohamed, Asma Mahmoud Hamza, Sarah Salih Mohammed, Abdualmoniem Omer Abdalla, Isameldin Mustafa Mohamed, Mahgoub Ali Adam and Abdalla Ali Mohammed. Effect of Household Food Insecurity on the Nutritional Status of Children under Five in North Kassala; Kassala State, Eastern Sudan. Journal of Food Security. 2022; 10(1):25-31. doi: 10.12691/JFS-10-1-4

Abstract

Background: Food insecurity still a major public health problem in Sudan. This study aim to assess the effect household food insecurity - which was about 38.7% of household in the study area - on the nutritional status of children less than five years in north Kassala localities, Kassala State, eastern Sudan. Method: The study was cross-sectional including 445 household distributed in 16 villages using specially designed questionnaire. Multi-cluster random technique was used to collect data. Only HH with children under five years were included in the study. Results: Stunting, wasting and underweight were reported in 52.1%, 35.6% and 53.9% respectively. The relationship of nutrition status of children and HH food security was statistically non-significant. Conclusion: The prevalence of malnutrition among children in the study area was very high. Improving household food security may be necessary but not sufficient to improve the nutritional status. Other risk factors such as maternal education, avoiding certain types of food and controlling childhood infections must be corrected.

Keywords

food security, stunting, wasting and underweight

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References

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