Background: In Bangladesh, more than two-thirds of total food consumption
is rice as main staple, especially for the
poor, in addition to some vegetables, pulses and small quantities of fish, meat,
egg, etc. if and when available. The similar dietary pattern and
practices were found for under two years old children in the intervention areas
of Alive and Thrive (A & T) project where consumption of animal foods by
children was minimal even after being counseled on its rightly mentioned. Premising the facts, BRAC Research and Evaluation
Division (RED) intended to investigate the factors that might have led
to the consumption of least amount of protein from animal foods by the children
in the A & T intervention areas. Objective: To investigate the dietary
intake pattern of the children aged 6 - 23 months from beneficiary households
and identify the factors that might have led
to the lower intake of animal diets by those of the children. Methods: Mixed
methods were applied to gather necessary information for the study. Quantitative
tools were used to collect information on socioeconomic profile of the
beneficiary households, feeding practice or dietary
intake pattern of the children whereas qualitative tools were used to recognize
the opportunities and barriers of the beneficiaries for feeding lower amount of
animal foods to their children. Twelve upazilas were selected purposively from 4 districts (four geological corners of Bangladesh): Barguna, Sylhet, Chittagong and
Dinajpur districts (3 from each). One control and two intervention upazilas were selected from each of the
districts. The intervention areas were selected where A & T supported
health programmes and other BRAC health programmes were operating. The control
areas were selected where other BRAC health programmes were operating except A &
T programme. The Pusti Kormi (PK), Shasthya Shebika (SS) and mothers/caregivers enrolled in the A & T intervention areas were selected for interview, in addition to those who had involvement in services from the supervisory level.
Results: Quantitative findings of the study revealed that food intake
from animal sources in intervention areas was 7 - 12 g at the age 1 year and 18
g at 2 years where the recommended dietary average (RDA) was 14 g for less than
one year and 16 g for less than 2 years. These were also lower in comparison to
those counter parts of control areas. The qualitative findings indicated that
the major factors hindered in feeding foods from animal sources were lack of knowledge, lack of awareness on protein
deficiency, obstacles from the senior members of the family, myth like fish
intake create worm, taboos, etc. Other barriers were found from the
quantitative findings, like financial crisis (intervention area 80%; control
area 78%), unavailability of the food products in local market (intervention
area 5%; control area 3%), etc. Conclusion: Food consumption from animal
sources might be increased among the under two years old children by
reinforcing efforts in awareness development process addressing those of the
challenges that might create demand for appropriate IYCF services at the
household level.