WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Ziyad Hazim Ibrahim* and Ali Haleem Jasim

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Undernutrition among children is still considered as a global health problem particularly in developing countries. In Iraq there are several inadequate feeding practices of the mothers toward their children (as serving soft drinks) which could be related to the nutritional status of them. Objectives: To identify mothers' practice in giving soft drinks for their preschoolers and the possible effects of that practice on their undernutrition. Methods: A mixed-method survey was carried out on 505 Iraqi preschoolers and their mothers, by filling questionnaire about practices of them in serving soft drinks for their children, and also by taking the anthropometric measurements of those children to determine their nutritional status. The open-ended qualitative data and the quantitative data where analyzed by statistical tests. Results: 20% of the preschoolers were suffering from undernutrition. Majority of mothers gave soft drinks for their preschoolers. The mean age of children in the beginning of that serving was 21.5 months. More than half of mothers thought that soft drinks have no benefit. Also more than half of them made restrictions toward drinking of those beverages. Most of them didn't store those drinks in their homes. There are significant associations between preschoolers' undernutrition with both of their ages at the beginning of serving them soft drinks and with mothers' restriction on consumption of those drinks. It is needed for encouraging mothers to avoid serving soft drinks for their children, and for banning on selling that drinks inside kindergartens.