Improving complementary feeding practices, programs and policies for optimal early childhood nutrition in Kenya: What would work?

• Published in: Maternal and child nutrition 2024-01, Vol.20 (S3), p.e13616-n/a
• Main Authors: Codjia, Patrick, Kiige, Laura, Rudert, Christiane, Nordhagen, Stella, Beal, Ty, Kirogo, Veronica, Ortenzi, Flaminia, Gonzalez, Wendy, Kamudoni, Penjani, Garg, Aashima
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access; Accountability; Advocacy; Beef; Behavior change; Caregivers; child nutrition; Childhood; Children & youth; children's diets; complementary feeding; Coordination; Decentralization; Diet; Early childhood education; Food availability; Healthy food; Identifying and Addressing Barriers to Optimal Complementary Feeding in Kenya; Infants; Joint planning; Kenya; Legumes; Livestock; Milk; Nutrients; Nutrition; Plant-based foods; Prices; Provinces; Recipes; Sanitation; Social behavior; Social protection; Stakeholders; strategy; Supplement; Systems approach; Tariffs; Visual communication
• ISSN: 1740-8695; 1740-8709
• DOI: 10.1111/mcn.13616

Complementary feeding practices are greatly influenced by local contexts. Therefore, national home‐grown evidence, policies and guidelines are critical to improving infant and young children's diets. This Special Issue has provided a comprehensive, evidence‐based analysis of the situation, gaps and context‐specific opportunities for improving young children's diets in Kenya. The primary research findings of the Special Issue supported the identification of a set of recommendations articulated across the four systems (food, health, water, sanitation and hygiene [WASH] and social protection) to improve food availability and accessibility in Kenya at the national and subnational levels. It is anticipated that the decentralised government functions seen in Kenya provide a strong opportunity to develop and mainstream context‐specific recommendations into action. This Special Issue recommends adopting a multi‐sectoral systems approach, including a shared vision, joint planning, implementation and monitoring, towards improving young children's diets with a focus on service delivery as well as scaled‐up community social behaviour change interventions. In particular, the approach should entail advocacy for policy revisions for service delivery that support complementary feeding and development of costed implementation strategies in support of the same, across four critical systems—food, health, WASH and social protection, along with, the strengthening of national coordination, monitoring and accountability structures as per the Kenya Nutrition Action Plan. Finally, the development of a legal framework for enhanced accountability from all relevant sectors towards sustainable, nutritious, safe and affordable children's diets. These recommendations provide a clear direction in addressing the complementary feeding challenges, which the primary research of this Special Issue has presented. Key messages Dietary patterns are varied across regions more so sub‐regions within the same country. Therefore, home‐grown and localized evidence is crucial for developing national complementary feeding guidelines. Food market forces, especially availability, and supply, are crucial aspects of food environments. Improving trade policies and tariffs infrastructure should become part of efforts to enhance complementary feeding diets of young children. Social‐behavior‐change focused on addressing socio‐cultural norms and skills for nutritionally optimal food utilization is needed to impr