Food Consumption Pattern and Its Impact on the Nutritional Status of 6-59 months' Children in Sana'a Governorate, Yemen

The objective of this research is to study into what extent can food consumption pattern affects the nutritional status of children less than 5 years in Sana'a Governorate, Yemen in connection with some socio-economic factors. The investigation data was extracted from a comprehensive survey done by UNICEF, Yemen during 2016. The survey was a cross-sectional with a representative sample of children 5-59 months. The survey was conducted in the two ecological zones of Sana'a Governorate the temperate (TZ) and the dry (DZ) zones. The total number of children attained were 525 and 580 in TZ and DZ respectively. The anthropometric measures of children were taken and all the global nutrition indices (z-scores) were generated and compared with WHO Growth Standards. The food consumption pattern of household was recorded and the food consumption scores (FCS) were produced for each household. Data on some other socio-economic factors were also collected. The prevalence rates of BMIZ, MUACZ, WHZ, WAZ and HAZ are 9.1%, 19.1%, 12.9%, 40.0% and 51.3% respectively for the whole governorate. Separate nutrition indices were produced for each zone and children of DZ were found more vulnerable to malnutrition than TZ children. 92.6% of the targeted households were found on the acceptable level of the FCS classification. Using Chi-Square testing has revealed significant associations between children ages, latrine type and zones with most of the nutrition indices but not with the FCS classification. Similar results were noticed when the multivariate logistic regression particularly with children ages and latrine type but another significant association emerged between income quintiles and both HAZ and WAZ nutrition indices with little difference between zones.