Gaps in knowledge and practice on dietary consumption among rural farming households; a call for nutrition education training in Tanzania

Abstract

Dietary-related conditions are preventable only if people have better understanding of factors that underpin their dietary choices. A cross-sectional study was carried out to examine levels and gaps of nutrition knowledge and practices (KPs) of 663 mothers/caregivers in rural households of Tanzania. Results indicated that, only 14% of the population had received nutrition education prior to the survey. The mean KP score was 6.9 (±2.6) out of 20 with only 17% of the study population had KP scores above the mean. The average proportion of those who had correct responses above mean was 27% for knowledge and 22% practices. Low coverage of nutrition education and poor participation of men in nutrition education activities were frequently reported as the barriers for adoption of desirable dietary practices at households. The KP levels are far below the recommended FAO thresholds and entail high levels of nutrition illiteracy which call for immediate intervention.

Keywords:

• KAP
• nutrition knowledge
• dietary practices
• nutrition education
• rural households

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Scale-N project (https://susland.zalf.de/scale-n/). The project was funded by the Germany government through Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in collaboration with Sokoine University of Agriculture and University of Hohenheim. We are grateful to the villagers and rural community both from Dodoma and Morogoro regions, for their willingness to participate in the study and providing the required information.

Author contributions

N.B. contributed conception and design of the study; N.B. and M.B. organised the database and performed the statistical analysis; N.B. wrote the first draft of the manuscript; J.K., T.J., M.B. C.R. and S.S. critically review and edit sections of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read and approved the submitted version.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.