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Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey

BACKGROUND: The nutritional quality of food has an important impact on the health and well-being of families, especially children whose bodies need to grow, develop and reach their full physical and mental potential. Traditionally, women in Ghana provide care and nourishment for their children and f...

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Autores principales: Dadzie, Louis Kobina, Amo-Adjei, Joshua, Esia-Donkoh, Kobina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8449451/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34535097
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11753-1
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author Dadzie, Louis Kobina
Amo-Adjei, Joshua
Esia-Donkoh, Kobina
author_facet Dadzie, Louis Kobina
Amo-Adjei, Joshua
Esia-Donkoh, Kobina
author_sort Dadzie, Louis Kobina
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The nutritional quality of food has an important impact on the health and well-being of families, especially children whose bodies need to grow, develop and reach their full physical and mental potential. Traditionally, women in Ghana provide care and nourishment for their children and families if they have the means to do so or if they are financially, legally and socially empowered. Women’s empowerment is not only important for women’s human rights, but also improves nutrition and health outcomes of both mothers and their children. Women’s empowerment is concerned with increasing ability to make strategic life choices in situations where the ability was hitherto denied. This study sought to investigate the association between women’s empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency (minimum number of meals to be consumed in a day) in Ghana. METHODS: The study used data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS). A sample of 1640 mother-child dyad was used. Mothers ages ranged from 15 to 49 while children’s ages ranged from 6 to 23 months. Univariate and multiple linear regression techniques were applied to identify women empowerment (economic, socio-familial and legal) and sociodemographic factors associated with minimum daily meal frequency scores. Data was analyzed by the STATA statistical package software version 13.0. Statistical significance level was set at P < 0.10. RESULTS: Data from decisions on large household purchases (β = 0.351, p < 0.01) family visits (β = 0.743, p < 0.01), home ownership (β = − 0.245, p < 0.10), age of child (β = 1.387, p < 0.01), mother’s educational attainment (β = 0.496, p < 0.10) and place of residence (β = − 0.298, p < 0.10) showed significant positive association with minimum daily meal frequency in Ghana. CONCLUSION: Minimum daily meal frequency was largely influenced by economic and socio-familial factors that contribute to empowerment of women. as decisions on large household purchases and family visits showed significant positive association with minimum daily meal frequency. Interventional programs should target households and mothers with lower socio-demographic characteristics such as lower educational levels and low economic status to improve minimal daily meal frequency in their children thereby ensuring better child health and well-being.
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spelling pubmed-84494512021-09-20 Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey Dadzie, Louis Kobina Amo-Adjei, Joshua Esia-Donkoh, Kobina BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: The nutritional quality of food has an important impact on the health and well-being of families, especially children whose bodies need to grow, develop and reach their full physical and mental potential. Traditionally, women in Ghana provide care and nourishment for their children and families if they have the means to do so or if they are financially, legally and socially empowered. Women’s empowerment is not only important for women’s human rights, but also improves nutrition and health outcomes of both mothers and their children. Women’s empowerment is concerned with increasing ability to make strategic life choices in situations where the ability was hitherto denied. This study sought to investigate the association between women’s empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency (minimum number of meals to be consumed in a day) in Ghana. METHODS: The study used data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS). A sample of 1640 mother-child dyad was used. Mothers ages ranged from 15 to 49 while children’s ages ranged from 6 to 23 months. Univariate and multiple linear regression techniques were applied to identify women empowerment (economic, socio-familial and legal) and sociodemographic factors associated with minimum daily meal frequency scores. Data was analyzed by the STATA statistical package software version 13.0. Statistical significance level was set at P < 0.10. RESULTS: Data from decisions on large household purchases (β = 0.351, p < 0.01) family visits (β = 0.743, p < 0.01), home ownership (β = − 0.245, p < 0.10), age of child (β = 1.387, p < 0.01), mother’s educational attainment (β = 0.496, p < 0.10) and place of residence (β = − 0.298, p < 0.10) showed significant positive association with minimum daily meal frequency in Ghana. CONCLUSION: Minimum daily meal frequency was largely influenced by economic and socio-familial factors that contribute to empowerment of women. as decisions on large household purchases and family visits showed significant positive association with minimum daily meal frequency. Interventional programs should target households and mothers with lower socio-demographic characteristics such as lower educational levels and low economic status to improve minimal daily meal frequency in their children thereby ensuring better child health and well-being. BioMed Central 2021-09-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8449451/ /pubmed/34535097 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11753-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Dadzie, Louis Kobina
Amo-Adjei, Joshua
Esia-Donkoh, Kobina
Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey
title Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey
title_full Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey
title_fullStr Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey
title_full_unstemmed Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey
title_short Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey
title_sort women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in ghana: analysis of ghana demographic and health survey
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8449451/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34535097
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11753-1
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