Determinants of Child Undernutrition in Tanzania: Agriculture and Season Perspective: A Review

The causes of undernutrition are known to be complex and interrelated which need responses and solutions from different sectors to effectively design proper nutrition interventions. The UNICEF conceptual framework is a useful tool for understanding the causes of undernutrition and serves as a guide for assessing and analysing the causes, particularly among children in developing countries. Identifying determinants of child nutrition status is a necessary step in designing interventions, policies and programme that can support the scaling up of nutrition. This review scrutinizes undernutrition and its determinants based on the UNICEF conceptual framework on malnutrition. Poor feeding practices and characteristic of complementary foods were observed as immediate causes while household’s food insecurity, environmental factors such as agricultural practices and seasonal influences as underlying determinants particularly in rural households. The highlight from this review suggests that seasons had significant impact on both immediate and underlying determinants of undernutrition and therefore intervention to improve nutrition status should consider variation in agriculture seasons. Lastly, multicomponent interventions focusing on agricultural interventions and practices that are affecting immediate changes in nutrition status among infants and young children are emphasized. Future attempt to improve children nutrition status in rural households should be multicomponent addressing nutrition sensitives farming practices including rural livestock intensification, poverty alleviation and considering agricultural seasons in all planning.