Culturally appropriate nutrition education improves infant feeding and growth in rural Sichuan

ABSTRACT Chinese,studies indicate that the growth,of rural infants and,children lags behind,that of their urban counterparts after 4 mo of age and that the gap is widening. However, the rural areas are home to .85% of China’s 300 million children. Clearly, culturally appropriate rural complementary feeding interventions are needed to close the growth,and,health gaps. After a 1990 survey,of infants in rural Sichuan,confirmed,that poor,infant feeding practices rather than inadequate household food resources were responsible for the growth faltering, a year-long community-based,pilot nutrition education,intervention (n > 250 infants each in Education and Control groups) was undertaken,in four townships.,The goal was,to improve,infant growth,by improving,infant feeding,practices. Features of the intervention included,the training and,mobilizing of village nutrition educators,who,made,monthly growth,monitoring,and,complementary,feeding,counseling,visits to all pregnant,women,and,families with infants born during the intervention in the study villages. After 1 y, the Education group mothers showed significantly higher nutrition knowledge and better reported infant feeding practices than their Control group counterparts. Also, the Education group infants were significantly heavier and longer, but only at 12 mo (weight-for-age 21.17 vs. 21.93; P 5 0.004; height-for-age 21.32 vs. 21.96; P 5 0.022), had higher breast-feeding rates overall (83% vs. 75%; P 5 0.034) and,lower anemia,rates (22% vs. 32%; P 5 0.008) than the Control group,infants. We conclude that these methods have potential for adaptation and development to other rural areas in the county, province and nation. J. Nutr. 130: 1204 ‐1211, 2000. KEY WORDS: ,,infant feeding Infant and child growth studies in rural China, home to