Promoting consumption of green leafy vegetables among rural women through participatory approach

Abstract

The present study entitled “Promoting consumption of green leafy vegetables among rural women through participatory approach” was conducted with the objective of promoting consumption of green leafy vegetables among rural women through an intensive educational programme employing participatory techniques and to assess its impact.The assessment of personal and socio-economic characteristics, dietary habits, collection of traditional recipes and knowledge about uses of green leafy vegetables, current supplementary feeding programme of the selected five anganwadi centers were done on the selected sample of the one hundred respondents. The respondents were selected from the five ICDS centers namely Athiyannoor, Aralummoodu, Pathamkallu, Vazhimukku, and Kaithottukonam in order to impart nutrition education programme for promoting green leafy vegetable consumption and also to promote inclusion of leafy vegetables in the supplementary feeding programme of the selected five anganwadi centers. The impact evaluation of nutrition education programme was assessed after a gap of three month.

The findings of the socio-economic survey done revealed that majority of the respondents belonged to the age group less than or equal to thirty five years and belonged to Other Backward Caste (about 60 percent). Analysis of family structure revealed that majority of the respondents belonged to nuclear type of families and had a family size of 1-4 members. While analyzing the land holding size, it was found that eighty six percent of the respondents had their own land. Most of the respondents were (sixty four percent) not engaged in any livestock rearing and forty six percent of the respondents did not grow any green leafy vegetable at all. About eighty percent of the respondents lived in their own house and about fifty four percent of the respondents were having tap water facility for drinking purpose. Regarding educational status it was found that majority of the respondents had education up to pre-degree level. The employment status of the respondents shows that majority of them were unemployed. Most of the families had monthly income between 7323-9787 rupees and belonged to middle income group.

Dietary habits of the respondents indicated that ninety percent of them were habitual non-vegetarians. Majority of the respondents (about fifty three percent) took food outside home occasionally. A majority percentage of respondents were using green leafy vegetables in the form of thoran. The frequency of use of green leafy vegetables revealed that most of the respondents used curry leaves and coriander leaves in their diets. The conduct of the supplementary feeding programme in the selected anganwadi centers was studied with the help of anganwadi worker. It revealed that poor utilization of green leafy vegetables in the supplementary feeding programme in the five selected anganwadi centers. A number of traditional recipes and various uses of green leafy vegetables were collected from the respondents. Five green leafy vegetable recipes namely chekkurmanis cutlet, drumstick leaves with scrambled egg, wheat rawa kichdi, weaning mix and amaranth squash were selected from these and subjected to acceptability tests among a selected panel of judges. Chekkurmanis cutlet was the highly accepted one while weaning mix was the least accepted product. None of the green leafy vegetable recipes were too low in mean score, this revealed that almost all green leafy vegetable recipes were liked by the panel members.Assessment of pre knowledge and attitude scores of respondents showed that majority of respondents had poor level of knowledge and attitude about the use of green leafy vegetables. The nutrition education programme was conducted to make the respondents aware of the importance of green leafy vegetables in their daily diet and inclusion of green leafy vegetables in supplementary feeding programme of the selected five anganwadi centers. The nutrition education programme was conducted with the help of nutrition education classes, charts, a video show on leafy vegetables prepared for the purpose of the study, leaf lets, kitchen gardening, demonstration and discussion. The impact of the nutrition education programme was assessed after three months by conducting a post test. The results showed that there was highly significant gain in knowledge and change in attitude of the respondents thus pointing out the positive impact of the nutrition education programme. The post test conducted revealed a significant change in the consumption of green leafy vegetables by the respondents. Locally available leafy vegetables were found to be included in the supplementary feeding programmes of the five selected anganwadi centers. The anganwadi workers also reported that they would use the leafy vegetables from the leafy vegetable garden for the feeding programme when the plants had grown. The scope of nutrition communication programmes using a participatory approach for bringing about positive change in the consumption of green leafy vegetables is evident from this study. The study proved that this programme can be successfully implemented in all the anganwadi centers of our state. The increase in the actual green leafy vegetable consumption will surely help to alleviate the micronutrient deficiencies prevalent in our state especially among women and children.