The dietary diversity and rural households’ nutrition security in itang special district, Gambella, Ethiopia

The malnutrition is pervasive are in the Itang special district of Gambella region. The children, elder, pregnant women, disabilities and other disadvantageous members of the households were extremely malnourished in the district. The main aim of this study was to assess dietary diversity and the rural households’ nutrition security in Itang special district. The study was carried out in Itang Special District among the rural households. It had collected the primary data through households’ consumption survey, key informants interview and body mass index. Then, the descriptive statistics mainly frequency and percentage were used to analyze the data via SPSS version 20. The field result revealed that about 54%, 40% and 6% of the rural households have low, medium and high dietary diversity in the district. Similarly, about 53%, 35%, 5% & 7% of the rural households were underweight, normal, obese & overweight respectively in the district. There was a low dietary diversity and high prevalence of underweight among the rural households in the study district. Thus, the Office of Agriculture and Natural Resources of the district, together with the health office have to provide the capacity building training on awareness of diversification of the income sources and credits facilities in Itang special district.