Nutrition Clinic

The Kabale district of Uganda has one of the highest rates of severe acute malnutrition among children under five in the country. Severe acute malnutrition is mainly caused by a lack of protein in the diet. One of the biggest reasons for this is the diet that is eaten by the local population. A majority of the local community lives through subsistence farming, which means everything that they eat they grow or raise themselves. The diet that comes as a result of this is typically very low in proteins and very high in carbohydrates, which can lead to severe acute malnutrition.

One of the ways in which the KIHEFO clinic helps to treat and prevent severe acute malnutrition is by doing monthly checkups for all children who have been brought to the clinic for malnutrition up until the time they turn five years old. On the last Saturday of every month, mothers who have malnourished children bring those children back to the clinic to be assessed by the nutritionist. The nutritionist will take their weight and height and record them so that the measurements can be tracked over time. By tracking the children’s weight and height over time, the nutritionist is able to assess whether or not they are growing at a healthy, normal weight for children their age.

July 27th was the day that all of the children came back for their checkups, so we were able to go to the nutritional rehab clinic to play with all of the kids and observe how the nutritionist does her assessments. The nutritionist taught us how to recognize signs of malnutrition, including a light brown hair color rather than black, and skinny limbs with a larger abdomen. Around 40-50 kids came in for assessments and so we pulled out toys for them to play with, which they had a lot of fun with.