Poor nutrition worrying Kapoche Ward Nutrition Committee

The Kapoche Ward Nutrition Committee (WNCC) has bemoaned the failure by caregivers to give nutritious foods to children.

Maureen Miti, a member of the committee, says most of the caregivers in the ward are avoiding nutritious meals such as porridge with groundnuts in preference to snacks like giggys and Maheu.

Ms Miti, who is also the In-charge at Kakula Health Post, said her institution during the first quarter of the year, recorded five malnutrition cases.

Speaking during a Germany Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) supported WNCC meeting, she attributed the failure to the food preference that caregivers adopted instead of sticking to nutritious foods.

“The challenge we have is that mothers are now finding nutritious foods such as porridge with groundnuts as a thing of the past and now prefer jiggys and Maheu to feed their children,” she said.

Ms Miti, however, stated that counselling and awareness was done to help the mothers and caregivers stop the trend to better the lives of their children.

“During the counseling sessions, we advise them to stick to locally available foods so that their children can grow and be in good health,” she said.

She also indicated that for children whose situation worsened, necessary medical steps were taken in order to save their lives.

Meanwhile, Kapoche Ward Councilor, Yelesani Mwale, said his committee was making strides to educate the community on good nutrition practices.

“We talk about feeding children and we usually teach them effective breastfeeding, nutritious foods such as orange fleshed sweet potatoes,” he said.

However, Mr Mwale emphasised the need for repeated sensitisations and awareness raising campaigns on the need to feed children high nutritious foods as opposed to foods with low nutritional profile.