Adequacy of Diets for Kenyan Women and Children under Five Years Using 24 hr Recall Data.

Objectives: The Ministry of Health in conjunction with several stakeholders conducted a nationally representative 24-hour dietary recall component of the Kenya National Micronutrient Survey (KNMS) to characterize the average intake and dietary pattern of women of reproductive age and children 7-59 months. Methods: 296 clusters were randomly selected for the KNMS survey. Within each cluster, we randomly selected 2 households that met the inclusion criteria of having either a women of reproductive age, a child under five years of age or both, who are usual residents of the household. An interactive 24-hr recall multiple pass approach was used to collect one day dietary intake data on all households and repeated on a sub-set of 20% households on non-consecutive days. Using PC-SIDE software (version 1.0, June 2013) for data analysis, we determined the usual intake of each nutrient. We report here the dietary data of 399 women (15-49 years) 55 children (7-12 months) and 214 children (13-59 months). Results: Average energy, iron, vitamin A and zinc intakes in women were 1944 kcal, 12.6 mg, 778 μg and 8.1 mg respectively while these nutrient intakes in children 7-12 months and 13-59 months were 473 Kcal, 2.5 mg, 126 μg, 2.1mg and 1036 kcal, 6.3 mg, 366 μg, 4.3 mg respectively. Prevalence of inadequacy among women, children 7-12 months and children 13-59 months using EAR cutoffs and adjusting for intra individual variability was 17%, 94% and 9% for iron; 43%, 99% and 41% for vitamin A; 49%, 62% and 23% for zinc respectively. Conclusions: These data point towards a number of programmatic interventions to improve the adequacy of diets for Kenyan women and children.