IMPROVEMENT OF NIGHTBLINDNESS SITUATION IN CHILDREN THROUGH SIMPLE NUTRITION EDUCATION INTERVENTION WITH THE PARENTS

The impact of a simple nutrition education intervention was studied on the nightblind situation of children under 6 years of age in a coasta l area of Bangladesh. Parents were given nutritional education and mot ivation by various means for 18 months to grow more vegetables and fru its rich in vitamin A and to feed these to their children. Treatment o f the already nightblind children to full recovery with vitamin A caps ules created confidence in the study personnel. A follow-up survey aft er the intervention period showed that the level of nutritional knowle dge of the parents on vitamin A improved highly significantly. Vegetab le production per family and actual vegetable consumption per child in creased. Intake of cooking oil also increased and the type of the oil consumed changed from mustard to soybean, the latter being half as cos tly as the former. As a consequence of these improvements, the prevale nce of nightblindness amongst children under 6 years dropped from 4.1% to 0.47% and there was no new case of total blindness in the study po pulation. Analysis of the results indicate that this improved nightbli ndness situation was due to increased nutritional knowledge of the hou sehold heads irrespective of their occupation, income, and the level o f their formal education in school. The success of such a simple educa tion intervention programme was considered dependent on the confidence established in the household heads and the consequent positive respon se made to the projected messages.