Nutrition education manual for parents and caregivers in rural areas of Western Africa

Even though progress against childhood malnutrition has been made, millions of children under the age of five still suffer from the global burden of the disease. The introduction of nutrition education for parents is crucial for improving children’s health outcomes considering that parental participation in nutrition education interventions can help prevent or treat undernutrition among children. Otherwise, the developmental, medical, social, and economic impacts of malnutrition are significant and lasting, for individuals and their families, as well as countries. Therefore, a nutrition education manual for parents was developed to create awareness in order to decrease the prevalence of malnutrition among children. For this project, four different chapters with specific topics exploring signs and symptoms, and consequences of malnutrition, as well as different ways to reduce malnutrition were written in simple, everyday terms that a layperson can understand. Each chapter was accompanied by pictures that demonstrate proper feeding, cleaning, and holding techniques. In Addition to pictures, a list of Quick Response (QR codes) containing supplemental resources on the nutrition-related topic for each chapter was also provided. With the completion of this project, parents can use this resource to gain basic nutrition knowledge which could positively affect their children’s health outcomes. Furthermore, future research should put this project into practice and evaluate its effectiveness in reducing childhood undernutrition