| Abstract: | Nutrition is very essential for the development of our body that required to be
considered in the national food security indicators. Good health can be
preserved and promoted mostly by the right kind of food. One of the major
constraints to the development of human capital and capacities is the impact of
loss of human potential; both physical and mental, due to poor childhood
nutrition. However, the most common types of assets owned such as household
equipments, number of livestock, and the availability of cereals in kilograms
and so on have been used as basic national food security indicators. These
criteria should not exclusively use national food security indicators. In this
regard UNCEF (2005) stated that “For every operation that WFP undertakes,
it has to establish what type and quantity of food people need. It is not just a
question of providing food, but also making sure what arrives is nutritionally
appropriate to address the problem at hand’’. The main purpose of this study
was then to identify the causes of malnutrition under five children and the
indicators that should be considered at national level to decide the well-being
of the rural households. Further more, the study was designed to show the
nutritional status of children shouldn’t be measured only by the availability of
food and other basic household possessions. To prove this, the researcher
includes 120 households, which is 60 households per villages: 120 mothers
were interviewed, and their under five (2-3) children were measured using Mid
Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) to check their nutritional status.
Regarding data collection, both primary and secondary data gathering
methods were used. The data obtained through these instruments was analyzed
using the recent version of ENA soft ware and SPSS version 19.The findings
using SPSS shows the existence of severe level malnutrition in both food secure
and non-secure household. Mainly, the findings using MUAC shows 34.5% of
the surveyed children have global malnutrition, 29.3 % have moderate
malnutrition, and 5.2% have severe malnutrition in the food secured
households. Similarly, using the same measurement MUAC for the food
unsecured households, 35% of the sample populations have global
malnutrition, 15.8% have severe malnutrition and 45.3% have moderate
malnutrition. The study, therefore, shows that the national food security
indicators should include the top determinants of nutritional status of children
such as mothers’ educational background, their level of knowledge on breastfeeding,
their awareness on type of food nutrients, education of their children,
and their participation on community education |
