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ABSTRACT
This article explores food culture and child-feeding practices, focusing on children below five years among the Bena and Luguru ethnic groups located in Njombe and Mvomero rural districts in Tanzania. In these two societies existing cultural norms, and beliefs related to child feeding focusing on breastfeeding and complementary feeding were investigated aiming at understanding how every-day practices on child feeding are socially and culturally constructed by actors including parents or guardians, thus giving cultural meanings that are attached to every-day realities on child feeding. The article is part of a larger research project whose overall purpose was to investigate the outcome of milk-based nutrition interventions involving dairy goat and cattle-keeping with the aim among others to improve health and nutritional status of family members, especially children below five years in societies where prevalence of malnutrition particularly undernutrition is rather high. Methods used included participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews. Findings show that early after birth, pre-lacteal feeds are commonly introduced in both societies and the most common complementary food includes plain maize porridge. On the other hand, milk consumption among children was rather limited. Existing food habits and feeding practices seem to be informed by widely-shared norms and beliefs. However, these culturally established practices do not always meet the current international recommendations on child feeding. Besides, recommendations and nutritional information on child feeding have largely not been used as suggested. This paper argues that, for the successful introduction and implementation of nutrition-based interventions targeting children, it is important to identify and improve upon the indigenous child-feeding practices, reflecting existing food habits, food-related beliefs, and their meanings.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge comments received from Prof. Ruth Haug and Prof. Kjersti Larsen on an earlier drafts of the manuscript. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, as well as Eldis for being a very good source of information for this study. Finally, we greatly appreciate the support we got from parents and guardians as well as village leaders and other stakeholders in the course of carrying out fieldwork for this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Child feeding practices are defined by Brown et al., Complementary Feeding of Young Children, as the complex dietary processes which are involved in a child’s ingestion of food. While the child feeding process is thought to begin in the womb (Stewart et al., “Contextualising Complementary Feeding,” 28) here we are only concerned with feeding practices of a child from the date of birth to the age of five years.
2. Badham, “Ensuring Optimal Breastfeeding ,” 1–5.
3. Schroeder, “Malnutrition”
4. Inappropriate child feeding can be identified through child-feeding practices indicators as recommended by WHO (2008).
5. Badham, “Ensuring Optimal Breastfeeding,” 1–5.
6. Victor et al., “Factors Associated with Innapropriate Complementary Feeding Practices,” 545–561; Thairu and Pelto, “Newborn Care Practices.”
7. Njai and Dixey, “A Study Investigating Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices,” 71–79; Stewart et al, “Contextualizing Complementary Feeding,” 27–45.
8. Daelmans et al, “Designing Appropriate Complementary Feeding,”116–130; Jones et al., “World Health Organisation,” 1–17.
9. Belasco, “Food Fieldhouse”.
10. Shirima et al., “Information and Socialeconomic Factors,” 936–941; Hussein et al., “Exclusive Breastfeeding,” 251–258; Hussein, “Breastfeeding and Complementary,” 27–31.
11. Mtenga and Kifaro, “Dairy Goat Research and Extension,” 73–80.
12. Mwangome et al., “Determinants of Appropriate Child Health and Nutrition Practices,” 167–172.
13. Wyatt et al., “Dairy Intensification,” 88–103.
14. Dewey, Cross-Cultural Patterns; FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture; Fieldhouse, Food and Nutrition.
15. Belasco, Food; Insel et al., Nutrition.
16. Badham, “Ensuring Optimal Breastfeeding and Improvements,” 1–5; WHO and UNICEF, Global Strategy for Infant.
17. Ecker et al. Making Agriculture pro Nutrition in Tanzania.
18. Roberts et al., “Can Breastfeeding Promote Child Health Equity?”
19. Complementary feeding refers to the timely introduction of safe and nutritionally rich foods in addition to breast milk, but could also be understood as a process which involves the gradual introduction of food.
20. Insel et al., Nutrition; Bhutta et al., “Evidence-Based Interventions,”; Black et al., “Maternal and Child Undernutrition,” 452–477.
21. WHO and UNICEF, Global Strategy for Infant; WHO, Indicators for Assessing Infant.
22. WHO, Indicators for Assessing Infant.
23. Ibid.
24. Victor et al., “Factors Associated with Innapropriate Complementary Feeding Practices,” 545–561.
25. Kothari et al., Nutritional Status of Women and Children.
26. See note 24 above.
27. Cobham et al., The Child Development Index 2012.
28. Curtis, Mark Why Wait.
29. Archetti, Guinea-Pigs, Food Symbol, 30; Helman, Culture, Health and Illness; Mead, The Problem of Changing Food Habits.
30. Insel et al., Nutrition.
31. Couniharn and Esterik, Food and Culture; Archetti, Guinea-Pigs, Food Symbol.
32. Couniharn and Esterik, Food and Culture.
33. Kleinman, Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture.
34. Caplan, Food, Health and Identity.
35. Ibid.
36. Douglas 1966, Purity and Danger; Helman, Culture, Health and Illness.
37. See note 29 above.
38. Kittler and Sucher. Food and Culture.
39. Belasco, Food.
40. See note 29 above.
41. Caplan, Food, Health and Identity.
42. Long, Development Sociology; Lupton, Medicine as Culture.
43. Lupton, Medicine as Culture.
44. Long, Development Sociology.
45. Belasco, Food.
46. Mwaseba and Kaarhus, “How do Intrahousehold Gender Relations” .
47. Ethical permit approval No R.8a/vol. ix/1245 was granted by National Institute for Medical Research to conduct research in Tanzania, while NSD-Norway provided the permit to conduct this research within a progamme at a Norwegian University.
48. This sample was drawn from a total of 120 households in each district selected for household interviews. Finding from the total sample is reported in Mwaseba and Kaarhus (2015).
49. Nyagawa, A History of the Bena to 1914.
50. Ohna et al., “No Meal Without Ugali?” 3–14.
51. Massawe, “Farming Systems and Agricultural Production,” 171–183.
52. See note 46 above.
53. Mabilia, “Beliefs and Practices Among the Wagogo of Chigongwe”.
54. Nyaruhucha et al., “Nutritional Status of Underfive Children” 32–36.
55. Agnarsson et al., “Infant Feeding Practices,” 9–13.
56. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) [Tanzania] and ICF Macro, Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey 2010.
57. Ibid.
58. See note 55 above.
59. There are different types of ng’anamwiko which include ugali wa kamba, ugali wa kimti and mwinika.
60. Douglas, Purity and Danger.
61. Turner, Betwixt and Between.
62. Ibid.
63. Ponte, “Trapped in Decline,” 81–100.
64. Ohna et al., “No Meal without Ugali?” 3–14.
65. See note 46 above.
66. WHO, Indicators for Assessing Infant and Young Child Feeding Practice.
67. Daelmans et al., “Designing Appropriate Complementary Feeding,” 116–130.
68. WHO, Indicators for Assessing Infant and Young Child.
69. Leach and Kilama, Insitutional Analysis of Nutrition in Tanzania.