Evaluation of nutrition education messages for supplementary feeding : the Bangladesh experience

This report evaluates the impact of nutrition education on the infant feeding practices of impoverished rural Bangladeshi mothers and on the growth of their weaning age infants. Activities included in-home demonstrations of recipes as well as techniques to enrich foods from the family pot with energy (e.g., oil and molasses), protein (e.g., milk, fish, or legume flour), and vegetables and fruits. Hygienic preparation of foods was stressed, and mothers were encouraged to continue breastfeeding, while at the same time frequently and persistently feeding new foods. A total of 117 children between 4-14 months were involved in the study. Findings are very encouraging, with behavioral changes evident in many of the mothers' feeding practices. Even after two years, the messages were still remembered by many of the mothers. Food refusal, due to anexoria stemming from frequent infectious illnesses, was identified as a major barrier to adequate consumption; other barriers included seasonal food shortages, inability to purchase foods due to poverty, and limited time of the mothers to prepare food and attentively feed their babies. The study concludes that, while increased intake of energy-enriched weaning foods is likely to reduce the degree of growth faltering, it cannot sustain ideal growth rates, given other economic and environmental barriers in rural Bangladesh.