Abstract:

Background: Malnutrition is strongly related directly or indirectly, to the main causes of death and disability worldwide. Globally, in 2013, about 99 million children under-fives of age were underweights, 161 million were stunted. Childhood stunting prevalence is 35% and wasting is 7% national wise. In Manyara, stunting has a prevalence of 46% and Mbulu has 48.6% childhood prevalence. The objective of this study was to determine women’s knowledge and practices on complementary food selection, preparation and blending for children 6 to 24 months of age in Mbulu District Manyara.

Methods: This was a community base cross-sectional study using semi-structured questionnaire with open and closed questions. The study comprised of 205 mother-child pairs living in 4 different villages in Mbulu District. Multistage random sampling procedure was used to obtain the villages; however, systematic sampling technique was used to obtain households visited.

Results: This study found that, 92.2% of respondents had lack of knowledge on food group’s selection, 46.3% had lack of knowledge on meal frequency and 98.1% had lack of knowledge on food preparation methods that cause nutrients loss. About 73.7% of respondents provided porridge made of cereals as complementary food. However, only 21% fed according to acceptable meal frequency; mother’s education and antenatal clinic attendance were significantly associated with lack and little knowledge on complementary food selection, preparation and blending.

Conclusion: Majority of women in the community with children 6 to 24 months of age had lack of knowledge and poor practices on complementary food selection, preparation and blending which may continue to risk children with stunting, wasting and anaemia.