Qualitative Accounts of School-Aged Children’s Diets during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Rural, Central, Kenya

Megan Jarman; Henriette Zeidler; Laura Shapiro; Rebecca Clarke; Haatembo Mooya; Barnabas Simatende; Danielle Matthews; Grace Koteng; Pamela Wadende; Claire Farrow

doi:10.3390/nu13103543

Qualitative Accounts of School-Aged Children’s Diets during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Rural, Central, Kenya

Megan Jarman
, Henriette Zeidler
, Laura Shapiro
, Rebecca Clarke
, Haatembo Mooya
, Barnabas Simatende
, Danielle Matthews
, Grace Koteng
, Pamela Wadende^*
, Claire Farrow^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Psychology, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zambia, Lusaka 32379, Zambia
Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
Department of Educational Psychology, School of Education and Human Resource Development, Kisii University, Kericho 20200, Kenya

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

51 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to food security in many countries, including Kenya. However, the impact of this on food provision to children at an individual level is unknown. This small study aimed to provide a qualitative snapshot of the diets of children during the COVID-19 pandemic. During completion of 24-h food recalls, with 15 families with children aged 5–8 years, caregivers were asked about changes they had made to foods given to their children due to the pandemic. Food recalls were analysed to assess nutrient intakes. Qualitative comments were thematically analysed. Most of the families reported making some changes to foods they provided to their children due to COVID-19. Reasons for these changes fell into three themes, inability to access foods (both due to formal restriction of movements and fear of leaving the house), poorer availability of foods, and financial constraints (both decreases in income and increases in food prices). The COVID-19 pandemic has affected some foods parents in rural Kenya can provide to their children.

Original language	English
Article number	3543
Journal	Nutrients
Volume	13
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13103543
Publication status	Published - 9 Oct 2021

Bibliographical note

© 2021 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).

Funding: This work was funded by a grant from the Global Challenges Research Fund via the
Economic and Social Research Council. Grant number ES/T004959/1.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 2 Zero Hunger

Keywords

COVID-19
Child
Child, Preschool
Diet/methods
Eating
Evaluation Studies as Topic
Female
Food Supply/methods
Humans
Income
Kenya
Male
Pandemics
Rural Population/statistics & numerical data
SARS-CoV-2

Access to Document

10.3390/nu13103543Licence: CC BY 3.0

Qualitative Accounts of School-Aged Children’s Diets during the COVID-19
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).
Final published version, 479 KBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

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abstract = "The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to food security in many countries, including Kenya. However, the impact of this on food provision to children at an individual level is unknown. This small study aimed to provide a qualitative snapshot of the diets of children during the COVID-19 pandemic. During completion of 24-h food recalls, with 15 families with children aged 5–8 years, caregivers were asked about changes they had made to foods given to their children due to the pandemic. Food recalls were analysed to assess nutrient intakes. Qualitative comments were thematically analysed. Most of the families reported making some changes to foods they provided to their children due to COVID-19. Reasons for these changes fell into three themes, inability to access foods (both due to formal restriction of movements and fear of leaving the house), poorer availability of foods, and financial constraints (both decreases in income and increases in food prices). The COVID-19 pandemic has affected some foods parents in rural Kenya can provide to their children.",

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Qualitative Accounts of School-Aged Children’s Diets during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Rural, Central, Kenya

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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