When 59% of children are stunted and yet the district they hail from is one of the country’s bread baskets, then something is terribly wrong. That is the case of Nyabihu in the Western Province where the statistics were revealed in the 2015 Demographic and Health Survey. Poor feeding habits are not the result of food scarcity or food with low calorific value, but poor nutritional knowledge on the part of parents. Otherwise, how does one explain the fact that only 18 percent of children under the age of two – at a time when most would be breastfeeding – receive the required minimum diet? This goes much beyond parents’ ignorance; local leaders have a hand in it. The whole country is dotted with community health workers who supplement the government’s efforts to have a healthy population. They have played a major role in scaling down traditional challenges such as infant mortality rates and other preventable diseases. They could do the same with the issue of stunting among children. This is where local leaders come in. If they could give as much attention in curbing malnutrition as they do to other development drivers, stunting would reduce drastically. It is not enough having a kitchen garden with all the required vegetables. The people should also be equipped with culinary knowledge to fully benefit from the food instead of taking the produce straight to the market. Nyabihu District’s pledge, therefore, to tackle the issue with much more vigour than before, should reflect better results in this year’s household survey.
