BEHAVIORS OF RURAL MOTHERS IN WESTERN UGANDA BY

Malnutrition is a major problem in developing countries. It is a challenge to communicate nutrition information in countries with limited resources. A four-week nutrition education intervention was developed and piloted in western Uganda to help rural mothers improve their food knowledge, food beliefs, and child-feeding behaviors. The participants (N = 71) were two groups of mothers: a nutrition intervention group (n=36) and a control group (n = 35) that attended sewing classes. Women who participated in the cooking classes had improved nutrition knowledge (P =.001), improved perceptions about what they believed were appropriate foods for children (P =.005), and selected a variety of foods (P =.011) more frequently (P =.003). This intervention has potential in improving the child-feeding behaviors of rural mothers