An Empirical Study on the Status and Determinants of Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices in Poor Rural Areas of China

doi:10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2019.03.007

Abstract

Abstract:

The early years of children's life is the most critical period that determines their health and ability development, and will have lasting effects on their survival, growth, development, human capital accumulation and adulthood income levels. In this study, we used baseline and follow-up survey data of 1,802 children aged 6-30 months old and their families from rural areas of Qinba Mountain, and analyzed the status and determinants of the feeding practices of primary caregivers of the sample children by descriptive analysis and a logistic regression model. We found that rural caregivers in the Qinba mountain stopped breastfeeding too early and relied too much on formula feeding. Regarding the complementary feeding, the proportion of the children who achieved the minimum food diversity in the sample area was 36%, which is lower than the average value of rural areas in other East Asian and Pacific countries (56.7%), but much higher than the average value of rural areas in Africa and South Asia (14.1%-23.7%). One possible reason for the poor feeding practices is that the rural caregivers lacked reliable sources of knowledge and information. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between feeding practices and caregivers' education levels. It is thus a necessary and important research direction to explore the ways to provide knowledge and guidance on children's feeding practices for rural caregivers, especially those with lower education levels.

Key words: infants, poor rural areas, breast milk, complementary feeding, feeding behavior

Tang Lei Luo Xia Li Ying Nie Jingchun Yang Jiyou Liu Han. An Empirical Study on the Status and Determinants of Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices in Poor Rural Areas of China[J]. Journal of East China Normal University(Educationa, 2019, 37(3): 84-96.

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