Diet Quality of Pre-school-children Aged 2-6 Years in Selected sub-Counties, Kitui County in Kenya

Substandard diet quality is a leading, yet avoidable, cause of poor health outcomes in children and adults. Around the globe, 22.3% of children are stunted, and although the stunting levels in Kenya have reduced from 26% to 18%, more effort is required. Different counties in Kenya have varying stunting rates, with the highest rates reported in arid and semi-arid counties, such as Kitui, where the stunting rate is 25%, which is higher than the national stunting rate of 18%. These high levels could be attributed to low dietary diversity intake, poor childcare practices, and other underlying causes of malnutrition. In arid and semi-arid lands, diets are driven by starchy staples, with low intake of fruits, vegetables, and animal-source foods. Nonetheless, minimal data exist on the diet quality of preschool children, as most data collected focus on complementary feeding practices of children aged 6-23 months. The objective of this study was to establish the diet quality of children aged 2-6 in Kitui County using the 29-food group diet quality questionnaire. A simple random sampling technique was used to sample 273 households in three sub-counties: Kitui Central, Nzambani and Katulani in Kitui County. Foods made from grains were the most consumed by 95% of the respondents, while processed meats and poultry were the least consumed at 1%. Cheese, unprocessed non-ruminant meat, fish and seafood, nuts and seeds, and fast foods were not consumed by any of the study children. The study children had a food group diversity score of 4.62 ±1.92, a Non-Communicable Disease- Protect score of 2.66 ± 1.22 and a Non-Communicable Disease-Risk score of 0.67 ± 1.047. Only 26.8% of the study children met the ALL-5 dietary requirement. The household’s head occupation was significantly associated with ALL-5 and Non-communicable disease-protect scores, whereas socio-economic status was significantly associated with ALL-5 indicator. Conclusively, a small percentage of the preschool children meet the diet quality requirements. There is a need for collaborative effort between the government and other institutions to educate the population on the importance of consuming a diversified diet rich in non-communicable disease-protective foods, inclusive of the ALL-5 food groups and low in non-communicable disease-risk foods, as well as promote accessibility and affordability of these foods. Key words: Diet quality, ALL-5, Food group diversity score, non-communicable disease-protect, non-communicable disease-risk