Suman Singh Baghel and Astuti Verma

Malnutrition is universal health problem of children in developing countries due to poor child feeding practices, lack of appropriate care, low dietary intakes and low dietary diversity. Therefore, this study was designed to assess the child feeding practices (aged 24-59 months) in cash crop producing household and non-cash crop producing household in Sidama zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia. A community based comparative cross-sectional study was conducted on randomly selected 616 under-five children from Wondogent (cash crop producing household) and Dore Bafano (non-cash crop producing household) woredas, SNNPR, Ethiopia. The multi-stages sampling methods were employed to select 616 children (308 children in cash crop producer’s area and 308 non-cash crop producer’s area households). Household food security was assessed by HFIAS, Feeding practices by structured questionnaire and Dietary diversity score (DDS) was assessed using a 24 hours recall method. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 was used to perform statistical analysis. The study indicated that children's daily meal frequency, breakfast, midmorning, afternoon and bedtime snack were more among children in cash crop producing households than non-cash crop producing households (p<0.05). Also a significant difference was observed in dietary diversity scores (x² = 13.1, p<0.001), child feeding practices (x² =12.1 p = 0.002), consumption of dairy products (x² =15.32, p<0.001) and other vitamin A rich fruits and vegetables (x² = 8.37, p=0.004) of children between cash crop and non-cash crop producing households. The finding revealed that the child feeding practices and dietary diversity scores of children from cash crop producing households were better compared to those from non-producing household. Therefore, all responsible bodies should be intensified and emphasis on non-cash producing households to improve the nutritional status, child feeding practices, dietary diversity scores and household food security status of children under - five years old.

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