|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
|
The social context of children's nutritional status in rural South Africa 1
Sangeetha Madhavan
Department of African-American Studies, University of Maryland, USA, smadhavan{at}aasp.umd.edu, MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt), School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Nicholas Townsend
Department of Anthropology, Brown University, USA
Aim: To investigate the relationship between children's nutritional status and a series of measures capturing both the current status and the lifetime history of their connection with adult caregivers in the Agincourt sub-district of rural South Africa. Methods: Using data on a sample of 202 children from a recent ethnographic study of children's social connections and well-being, the authors (1) compare height for age and weight for age to an accepted international standard and (2) conduct bivariate analyses of the relationships between selected measures of social connection and extreme deviations below expected weight and expected height. Results: Fitted curves for weight for age and height for age fall between the 5th and 50th percentiles of CDC growth curves. Compromised nutrition, defined as being more than two standard deviations below expected height or weight, is associated with the death or non-co-residence of the mother, and with the absence of financial support from the father. The co-residence of maternal female kin as substitutes for the mother do not fully compensate for her absence. Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of parental living arrangements, parental financial support, birth order and the composition of sibling sets, and lifetime residential patterns in facilitating access to nutrition.
Key Words: Children • height • nutrition • social connection • social context • South Africa • weight
References
- Fincham RJ, Thomas GC Nutritional intervention: a Ciskei and Eastern Cape perspective. Cape Town: Second Carnegie inquiry into Poverty and Development in South Africa; 1984.
- RHOSA Nutrition Survey. Anthropometric assessment of nutritional status in black under-fives in rural South Africa. Epidemiological Comments 1987;14:2—37.
- Tollman SM, Kark S., Kark E. The Pholela Health Centre: Understanding health and disease in South Africa through community-oriented primary care. In: Das Gupta M, Garenne M, Pison G, editors. Prospective community studies in developing countries. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1997. p 213—32.
- Labadarios D., Steyn NP, Maunder E., MacIntryre U., Gericke G., Swart R., Huskisson J. Dannhauser A., Vorster HH, Nesmvuni AE, Nel JH The National Food Consumption Survey (NFCS): South Africa, 1999. Public Health Nutr 2005;8:533—43.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
[Order article via Infotrieve]
- Mamabolo RL, Alberts M., Steyn NP, Delemarre van de Waal HA, LevittNS Prevalence and determinants of stunting and overweight in 3-year-old black South African children residing in the Central Region of Limpopo Province, South Africa. Public Health Nutr 2005;8:501—8.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
[Order article via Infotrieve]
- Van der Waal CS Rural children and residential instability in the Northern Province of South Africa. Social Dynamics 1996;22:31—54.
- Burman S., Reynolds P. Growing Up in a Divided Society: The Contexts of Childhood in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press; 1986.
- Bledsoe C., Ewbank D., Isiugo-Abanihe UC The effect of child fostering on feeding practices and access to health services in rural Sierra Leone. In: van de Walle E, Pison G, Sala-Diakanda M, editors. Mortality and society in sub-Saharan Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1988. p 627—36.
- Foster G., Makufa C., Drew R., Mashumba S., Kambeu S. Perceptions of children and community members concerning the circumstances of orphans in rural Zimbabwe. AIDS Care 1997;9:391—405.[Web of Science][Medline]
[Order article via Infotrieve]
- Hendriks SL The challenges facing empirical estimation of household food (in) security in South Africa. Development Southern Africa 2005;22:103—23.[CrossRef]
- Mosley WH, Chen LC An analytical framework for the study of child survival in developing countries. Population and Development Rev 1984;1(Suppl):25—45.
- Haveman R., Wolfe B., Spaulding J. Childhood events and circumstances influencing high school completion. Demography 1991;28:133—57.[Web of Science][Medline]
[Order article via Infotrieve]
- Panda PK Female headship, poverty and child welfare: A study of rural Orissa. Economic and Political Weekly 1997;32:73—82.
- Mamabolo RL, Alberts M., Mbenyane GX, Steyn NP, Nthangeni NG, Delemarre van De Waal HA, LevittNS Feeding practices and growth of infants from birth to 12 months in the central region of the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Public Health Nutr 2004;20:327—33.
- Guyer J. Household and community in African Studies. African Studies Rev 1981;XXIV:87—137.
- Sharp J. A world turned upside down: Households and differentiation in a South African Bantustan in the 1980s. African Studies 1994;53:71—88.
- Bledsoe C. Marginal members: Children of previous unions in Mende households in Sierra Leone. In: Greenhalgh S, editor. Situating fertility: Anthropology and demographic inquiry. New York: Cambridge University Press; 1995. p 130—53.
- Goody E. Parenthood and social reproduction: Fostering and occupational roles in West Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1982.
- Murray C. Families divided: The impact of migrant labour in Lesotho. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1981.
- Townsend N. Men, migration, households in Botswana: An exploration of connections over time and space. J Southern African Studies 1997;23:405—20.[CrossRef]
- Speigel A. Dispersing dependents: A response to the exigencies of labour migration in rural Transkei. In: Eades J, editor. Migrants, workers and the social order. London: Tavistock Publications; 1987. p 113—29.
- Lloyd C., Brandon A. Women's roles in maintaining households: Poverty and gender inequality in Ghana. Washington, DC: International Center for Research on Women; 1991.
- Lloyd C., Desai S. Children's living arrangements in developing countries. Population Research and Policy Rev 1992;11:193—216.[CrossRef]
- Kahn K., Tollman SM, Garenne M., Gear JSS. Who dies from what? Determining cause of death in South Africa's rural north-east. Trop Med Int Health 1999;4:433—41.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
[Order article via Infotrieve]
- Hargreaves J. Village typology: Descriptive results and preliminary discussion. Working paper of the Agincourt Health and Population Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2000.
- National Center for Health Statistics. NCHS growth chart equations. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1977.
- Cole TJ, Bellizzi MC, Flegal KM, Dietz WH Establishing a standard definition of child overweight and obesity worldwide. Br Med J 2000;320:1—6.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
- Trapp EM, Menken J. Measuring child nutrition: Problems with anthropometric measures as a proxy for child health in malnourished populations. Paper presented at the Third Annual Wits/Brown/Colorado/APHRC Colloquium on Emerging Population Issues, Boulder Colorado, 3—5 April 2005.
- World Health Organization. WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition. Document WHO/NUT/ 97.4. Geneva: WHO; 1997.
Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, Vol. 35, No. 69 suppl,
107-117 (2007)
DOI: 10.1080/14034950701355700
 CiteULike  Complore  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati  Twitter What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
|
|
 
S. M. Tollman and K. Kahn
Health, population and social transitions in rural South Africa
Scand J Public Health,
August 1, 2007;
35(69_suppl):
4 - 7.
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
