Household food insecurity and its impact on children health in rural Faisalabad, Pakistan

Objective: To investigate the impact of household food insecurity on child health in our area. Methodology: This descriptive study was conducted in Faisalabad. Multistage sampling technique was used for data collection and comprised of 120 household respondents who had at least one child less than five year age. Data were collected through an interview. The data were analyzed through SPSS. Results: A significant and strong association between socio-economic status of the respondents and impact of food insecurity on physiological deficiencies and abnormal health of their children was seen. A total of 93.3% respondents had opinion that poverty was a main cause of food insecurity and had opinion that food insecurity affected the normal growth of height in their children, while 94.2% of them though that food insecurity affected the normal growth of weight. 92.5% thought that the food insecurity affected the activeness of child. Conclusion: Household food insecurity negatively affected the children's physical growth and the children from poor families were suffering malnutrition. It is suggested that government and NGOs should take necessary steps for kinder the awareness about malnutrition in children.