Household food insecurity along an agro-ecological gradient influences children’s nutritional status in South Africa
- Authors: Chakona, Gamuchirai , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179836 , vital:43193 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2017.00072"
- Description: The burden of food insecurity and malnutrition is a severe problem experienced by many poor households and children under the age of five are at high risk. The objective of the study was to examine household food insecurity, dietary diversity, and child nutritional status in relation to local context which influences access to and ability to grow food in South Africa and explore the links and associations between these and household socio-economic status. Using a 48-h dietary recall method, we interviewed 554 women from randomly selected households along a rural–urban continuum in three towns situated along an agro-ecological gradient. The Household Dietary Diversity Scores (HDDS) and the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) tools were used to measure household dietary diversity and food insecurity, respectively. Anthropometric measurements with 216 children (2–5 years) from the sampled households were conducted using height-for-age and mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) as indicators of stunting and wasting, respectively. The key findings were that mean HDDS declined with decreasing agro-ecological potential from the wettest site (8.44 ± 1.72) to the other two drier sites (7.83 ± 1.59 and 7.76 ± 1.63). The mean HFIAS followed the opposite trend. Stunted growth was the dominant form of malnutrition detected in 35% of children and 18% of children were wasted. Child wasting was greatest at the site with lowest agro-ecological potential. Children from households with low HDDS had large MUAC which showed an inverse association among HDDS and obesity. Areas with agro-ecological potential had lower prevalence of food insecurity and wasting in children. Agro-ecological potential has significant influence on children’s nutritional status, which is also related to household food security and socio-economic status. Dependence on food purchasing and any limitations in households’ income, access to land and food, can result in different forms of malnutrition in children. Responses to address malnutrition in South Africa need to be prioritized and move beyond relying on food security and nutritional-specific interventions, but rather on nutrition-specific and sensitive programs and approaches; and building an enabling environment. Land availability, agriculture (including climate-smart agriculture especially in drier areas), and wild foods usage should be promoted.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Postgraduate writing groups as spaces of agency development
- Authors: Oluwole, David O , Achadu, A , Asfour, Fouad-Martin , Chakona, Gamuchirai , Mason, Paul , Mataruse, P , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187194 , vital:44578 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.20853/32-6-2963"
- Description: Academic writing is a peculiar phenomenon – it varies greatly from discipline to discipline and its requirements are rarely made overt. Taking on the writing practices of the academy has implications for identity and it is thus unsurprising that it is seen to be a risky endeavour. This article analyses the experiences of postgraduate scholars who have participated in writing groups that meet weekly to read each other’s work and provide supportive critique. Thirty-two people provided detailed, anonymous evaluations of their writing groups and these were studied using a discourse analysis. Three main findings are discussed here. Firstly, writing circles allowed for academic writing development to be engaged with as a social practice, where the disciplinary norms could be made more explicit through peer deliberation, and where they could also be challenged. Secondly, the lack of hierarchical power in the writing groups was key to making safe spaces for agency development, and also for providing positive peer pressure whereby participants were spurred on to work on their writing. Thirdly, the fact that the groups were interdisciplinary, within cognate disciplinary families, provided an interesting challenge in that the students had to consider what these non-specialist readers would or would not understand. This process assisted students in clarifying their writing. Participants’ evaluation of the writing groups revealed an overall sense that these contributed to postgraduate student wellbeing and were places of significant agential development.
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- Date Issued: 2018
The status and distribution of a newly identified endemic galaxiid in the eastern Cape Fold Ecoregion, of South Africa
- Authors: Chakona, Gamuchirai , Swartz, Ernst R , Chakona, Albert
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/453238 , vital:75233 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.2850"
- Description: DNA-based studies have uncovered cryptic species and lineages within almost all freshwater fishes studied thus far from the Cape Fold Ecoregion (CFE) of South Africa. These studies have changed the way the CFE is viewed, as almost all stream fishes that were previously consid-ered to be of low conservation priority, because they were perceived to have broad geographical ranges, con-tain multiple historically isolated lineages, many of which are narrow-range endemics.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
The status and distribution of a newly identified endemic galaxiid in the eastern Cape Fold Ecoregion, of South Africa
- Authors: Chakona, Gamuchirai , Swartz, Ernst R , Chakona, Albert
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425492 , vital:72250 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.2850"
- Description: DNA-based studies have uncovered cryptic species and lineages within almost all freshwater fishes studied thus far from the Cape Fold Ecoregion (CFE) of South Africa. These studies have changed the way the CFE is viewed, as almost all stream fishes that were previously consid-ered to be of low conservation priority, because they were perceived to have broad geographical ranges, con-tain multiple historically isolated lineages, many of which are narrow-range endemics.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018