Second Blog Post: Addressing Cultural Issues

Evelyn Velasquez-Moreno

Professor Khanjan Mehta

CINQ- 388 

31 January 2020 

Blog Post: Cultural Issues 

 

Cultural Issues for Malnutrition in Sierra Leone: 

One of the cultural issues that may affect the project of malnutrition in Sierra Leone is Vitamin Deficiencies in children under the age of five years old. The objective of our project Fieldwork in Sierra Leone works towards developing and introducing products that can work towards alleviating malnutrition in children under the age of five years old in Sierra Leone. The two products we will be working with include muffins and pudding that contain the necessary amount of nutrients, such as four essential micronutrients: Vitamin A, iodine, iron and zinc. In order to avoid this widespread problem in the country, we will be continuously modifying our recipe to increase shelf life and analyze our product’s environmental impact. Malnutrition in children consists of an unbalanced intake of energy and nutrients. In developing countries, like Sierra Leone, chronic malnutrition is common among children under the age of five years due to limited access of nutritious foods because of increasing costs and demand. Chronic malnutrition is dangerous because it leads to a severe condition known as acute malnutrition which increases the risk of life-threatening conditions like diabetes, iron-deficient anemia, and hypertension. Furthermore, we will work towards developing nutritious and affordable foods containing four essential micronutrients, vitamin A, iodine, iron, and zinc. 

Another cultural issue that affects my project is the food availability in Sierra Leone. For our project in Sierra Leone, our students will be developing two nutrient-dense, sweet potatoes based products, muffins for children ages two years and older, as well as a pudding for children over six months. The food availability in Sierra Leone is scarce, our project of malnutrition will be able to preserve the ingredients needed to bake these recipes, such as sodium propionate, ascorbic acid, and citric acid were evaluated. To conclude, students began the early development of a clinical study to determine the success of the muffins and pudding regarding the prevention of acute malnutrition. 

 Through clinical studies, we will work towards figuring out important information about the participants, such as whether or not the kids are growing normally, along with taking measurements of the participants. 

Situations of Cultural Issues from Experience:  

There were many cultural issues that had experienced growing up in Mexico, such as poverty, religion, education and malnutrition. There are steps to take while addressing the problems of malnutrition in Sierra Leone. These processes relate to fieldwork, clinical studies and developing recipes full on nutrition and vitamins. Poverty for example, was one of these cultural issues. Poverty in a family that is larger than four can be a social problem in developing countries. From my experiences growing up in Mexico, poverty was one of the leading factors of malnutrition, as those who were the most malnourished faced food scarcity. In addition, education, for example, was another leading factor. Those who did not have the same amount of education, especially women, had the most children. It is more challenging to support and maintain a family of many people. In terms of family status, while there are families that are fortunate enough to provide for themselves, others are not so fortunate to be able to provide for their own food, clothes, and health care. To address these problems that relate to my project of malnutrition, these are some of the steps to take while addressing the problems that are affecting malnutrition in Sierra Leone; these processes relate to fieldwork, clinical studies and the development of food recipes. Through these processes, we can work towards providing the sufficient amount of nutrition for those who face malnutrition. 

 

Cultural Practices that Can Be Leveraged to Address Community and Market Problems: 

  1. Agricultural Productivity: Work as a community to teach farmers how to grow more crops in order to help and provide nutritious foods for people and children who are facing the problem of malnourishment. Through working together as a community, and being able to teach farmers in developing countries to raise crops, there can be a way to leverage the agricultural productivity and food scarcity in developing countries around the world. 
  2. Communication: Since there is a limited access to nutritious foods in Sierra Leone, achieving food security means ensuring quality and continuity of food access. To address and to leverage these community and market problems, we should involve multiple sectors including agriculture, education, social protection, transport, gender, the food industry, health and other sectors, to ensure that diverse, nutritious diets are accessible and available. 
  3. Support Groups for Women: Support groups for women and their children. These support groups can be set in order to educate and support mothers who are and need of the learning breastfeeding practices, in order to ensure all the nutritional needs for their infants.  

 

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