Culturally-determined differences in vitamin A and iron deficiency between girls and boys in Machakos and Makueni Counties, Kenya
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACTAlthough malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency command global interest, the effect of gender favoritism on the nutrition status of infants and young children has not been extensively studied. In most developing countries, the nutritional standing of infants and young children is influenced by social cultural and traditional feeding practices with a gender bias in favour of the male child contributing to differences in prevalence of malnutrition between boys and girls related to disparities in levels of micronutrient intake. The study examines relationships and determinants of vitamin A and iron in infants and young children (6 to 36 months) of Machakos and Makueni Counties in Kenya, with a focus on variations and differences of micronutrient levels and dietary diversity score between the boys and girl as influenced by culture and taboos. Data collected included: anthropometry, C-reactive protein, α-1-acid glycoprotein, retinol binding protein (RBP), hemoglobin, dietary intake, culturally prohibited foods and mother's demographic and economic characteristics. Pearson and Fisher's exact tests were used to determine correlations and relationships with a confidence interval of 95% applied. Data for 277 children were analyzed after adjustment for inflammation using CRP and AGP. Prevalence of anemia was 35.3% with a mean (standard deviation) of 11.4(1.4) g/dL. Prevalence of vitamin A deficiency (VAD) was 42.6% with a mean of 0.94µmol/L. 35.7% of the children were stunted with a mean of -1.5(±1.3). DDS showed that 76.6% of the children had a low DDS (⤠3 food groups). No significant difference was observed (p > 0.05) in prevalence of anemia, VAD and low DDS between male and female children. A few locations had cultural/traditional forbidden foods like raw animal blood, meat from stomach of goat, meat, honey and fats. Relationship between anemic and VAD children was significant (p=0.03), with an odds ratio of (OR=1.59; 95% CI = 1.17, 2.16. A significant difference (p=0.01) was also observed between low education of child's mother/caregiver and child's DDS.Tradition/cultural practices that prohibit consumption of certain foods does lead to low dietary diversity score causing micronutrient (iron and vitamin A) deficiency which reflects on the poor nutrition status of the IYC. However, the "Action Plan 2012-2017" put in place by the Kenyan Government's Ministry to improve nutrition status reduces the bias in micronutrient deficiencies between boys and girls by wiping out myths centered around feeding practices.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".