Orphans and Vulnerable Children - CRIN

The Causes and Effects of Poor Nutrition

In this activity, you will:

 Discuss the common signs of malnutrition in children and what the causes are

Facilitator’s notes:

In this activity, you will discuss the causes and effects of malnutrition amongst children.

For this activity you will need:

 Flipchart and markers

To facilitate this activity:

1 Ask participants to describe the appearance of a child who is suffering from poor nutrition.
What problems is this child likely to have? Clarify and supplement based on the information
in your facilitator’s notes. Next, ask the participants to brainstorm the causes of poor nutrition.
Ask them to think about the major causes of poor nutrition in their own community.
Add ideas from the facilitator’s notes and the references in Appendix 2.
You may want to write the responses up on the flipchart.

2 Ask participants to start thinking about what can be done in their own communities to help
vulnerable children who are obviously not getting adequate food or having their nutritional
requirements met. Community interventions will form the subject of the next activity.

Activity 6

30 minutes

Causes of nutritional problems among children are:

• Insufficient food because of poor harvest, lack of money, famine


• Inadequate and infrequent meals


• Poorly balanced diet (too much of one food – usually carbohydrates, not
  enough protein, fruits and vegetables)


• Illness


• Worms and intestinal parasites


• Lack of knowledge or guidance


• Cultural beliefs and practices.

Common conditions of nutritional problems among young children are:

• Kwashikor


• Malasmus


• Underweight


• Small for age


• No energy, no strength, poor concentration and depression


• Weak body prone to disease


• Anaemia


• Oedema (swollen feet).

Guide to Mobilising and Strengthening Community-Led Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Unit 2, Module 3^233