Sheet n°253 - November 2006
Dietary diversity and nutritional risk
for women in Burkina Faso
ow can the people most
vulnerable to food and
dietary security problems in
rural Sahelian areas be identified? In Burkina Faso, one
of Africa’s poorest countries,
food supplies are seasonally
variable. Every year people
have to cope with a seasonal
cereal shortage (from May
to September), when cereal
stocks run out and they have
to await the next harvest. In
this context, IRD nutritionists
showed that nutritional analysis using the dietary diversity score (DDS), conducted
before the shortage period, is
an efficient tool for determining, within farming communities, the groups of women
under the greatest risks of
nutritional deficiencies and
malnutrition (1).
© IRD/Mathilde Savy
H
“To” is Burkina Faso’s national dish. It is a cereal paste usually served with a sauce of leaf vegetables. Village
of Boungou Natimsa, province of Gnagna, Burkina Faso.
In most countries of the South, and particularly in the Sahelian regions, people’s diet
varies with the seasons. In Burkina Faso, one
of the poorest countries of Africa, the land that
rural people living essentially from agriculture
have available is difficult to cultivate and suffers
from rain shortage. Rainfall is any case unequally spread in space and time. The season
cycle divides into three distinct periods: the
harvest season, from October to December,
followed by a period of relative abundance
from January to April, then a season of food
shortage from May to September. The latter period stretches from the moment cereal
stocks run out up to the following harvest, after
the rainy season (which occurs from June to
September). Survival during that time is made
even more difficult in that it coincides with
intense work in the fields and higher frequency
of diseases (especially malaria).
Programmes to ensure food security in these
regions require that the most vulnerable people in terms of food and nutritional status be
identified. IRD nutritionists studied the dietary
diversity of women from a rural province of
Burkina Faso, in two distinct periods of the
year: in April during the dry season and in
September during the wet season (1). The
dietary diversity corresponds to the number of
different food groups consumed by each individual over a given period (here, 24 hours) (2). It
is a good indicator of diet quality, notably when
it proves difficult to establish exactly the size of
rations. A very low-diversity diet limits the intake
>>
Institut de recherche pour le développement - 213, rue La Fayette - F-75480 Paris cedex 10 - France - www.ird.fr
CONTACTS :
MATHILDE SAVY
London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine.
Mathilde.Savy@lshtm.ac.uk
YVES MARTIN-PREVEL
IRD UR106 “Nalis”
(Nutrition, alimentation,
sociétés), IRD Burkina Faso
(Ouagadougou).
Tel: (226) 50 30 67 37
Yves.Martin-Prevel@ird.bf
FRANCIS DELPEUCH
IRD UR 106 “Nalis”
(Nutrition, alimentation,
sociétés), Montpellier.
Tel. : 33 (0)4 67 41 61 66.
delpeuch@mpl.ird.fr
PRESS OFFICE:
+33 1 48 03 75 19 ;
presse@bondy.ird.fr
INDIGO BASE, IRD PICTURE LIBRARY
+33 1 48 03 78 99 ;
indigo@paris.ird.fr
IRD AUDIOVISUEL
+33 (0)1 48 02 56 24 ;
audiovisuel@paris.ird.fr
www.audiovisuel.ird.fr/
REFERENCES:
MATHILDE SAVY, YVES MARTINPRÉVEL, PIERRE TRAISSAC,
SABRINA EYMARD-DUVERNAY
AND FRANCIS DELPEUCH
–Dietary Diversity Scores and
Nutritional Status of Women
Change during the Seasonal
Food Shortage in Rural
Burkina Faso, The Journal
of Nutrition, 2006, 136, p.
2625-2632.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
SAVY M, MARTIN-PRÉVEL
Y, SAWADOGO P, KAMELI Y,
DELPEUCH F. - Use of variety/
diversity scores for diet quality measurement: relation with
nutritional status of women in
a rural area in Burkina Faso.
European Journal of Clinical
Nutrition 2005, 59(5):703-16.
of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals, such
as iron, iodine, calcium, zinc, selenium and
so on) and can lead to deficiencies, even to a
more or less long-term malnutrition.
mass index (BMI)), by September at the end
of the food shortage period affected all the
women. No significant differences emerged
between different socio-economic categories.
Surveys conducted among 550 women
surveyed showed that dietary diversity (the
DDS) changed between April and September,
that is between the beginning and the end of
the food shortage season. Contrary to what
might have been thought, women’s overall
diet had become more varied at the end of
that period, even though that time was marked
by the rarity or high prices of the usual staple
cereals and more difficult living conditions. This
unexpected increase in DDS can be explained
by a seasonal change in food availability. The
arrival of rains from June onwards meant
that by September the women had a free or
inexpensive supply (by picking or gathering) of
other comestible vegetables (maize, groundnuts, leguminous vegetables, beans and so
on), but also milk, in particular for those women
who owned livestock, and fresh fish.
In the rural situation of the Sahel therefore,
assessment of the number of women vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies and malnutrition
can be made to best effect in April, before the
cereal shortage. This finding can be used to
define better the most crucial periods of the
year when the different agencies can intervene (NGOs, public authorities, etc.), in the
framework of food security programmes.
Thus there were more women considered
as being under very high risk owing to a lowdiversity diet (with a diversity index equal to two
food groups consumed in 24 hours) in April
(31. 6 %, that is a third of the women, against
8.1% in September). Moreover, weight loss,
averaging 1.9 kg (measured using the body
(1) This work is the fruit of the thesis by
Mathilde Savy, produced in the framework
of IRD research unit UR 106 and presented successfully on 6 October 2006:
“Indices de diversité alimentaire: mesure
et utilisation chez des femmes en âge de
procréer au Burkina Faso”.
(2) In this study, 9 food groups were considered: 1- cereals, root crops and tubers, 2leguminous plants, 3- fruit and vegetables
rich in vitamin A (mango, leaf-vegetables
and so on…), 4- other vegetables (gombo,
tomatoes, onions and so on), 5- other fruit,
6- meat, poultry and fish, 7- eggs, 8- milk
and dairy products, 9- fats and oils.
Marie Guillaume-Signoret - IRD
Translation : Nicholas Flay
© IRD/ Yves Martin-Prevel
Sheet n°253 - November 2006
For futher information
SAVY M, MARTIN-PRÉVEL Y,
TRAISSAC P, DELPEUCH F.
- Measuring dietary diversity in rural Burkina Faso:
Comparison of a 1-day and
a 3-day dietary recall. Public
Health Nutrition, 2006 (in
press).
KEY WORDS
DICTARY DIVERSITY
;
MALNUTRITION ; FOOD SECURITY ;
RURAL SITUATION
; BURKINA
Questionnaire presented to a woman by our enquiry agent (nutrition survey). Gnagna province, Burkina Faso.
FASO.
Marie Guillaume - Signoret, coordinatrice
Délégation à l’information et à la communication
Tél. : +33(0)1 48 03 76 07 - fax : +33(0)1 40 36 24 55 - fichesactu@paris.ird.fr