Cultural barriers to adequate dietary intake in drought prone areas of Bolero, Malawi.

Abstract

Cultural barriers shape dietary behavior and influence adaptive capacity of rural communities living in climate change prone regions of Sub Saharan Africa. Therefore, the study was conducted to assess the role of cultural barriers on dietary intake among households living in drought prone areas of Bolero, Malawi. The study involved 100 respondents (37 men & 63 women). Sixteen were 16 key informants and 84 focus group discussion (FGD) respondents selected purposively from six villages in Lundu and eleven villages in Bolero-A Sections. More women were targeted because preparation of meals was generally women’s responsibility. Mixed methods of community dialogue workshops, desk review, participant’s observations, FGD and Key Informant Interviews (KII) were used to collect qualitative data. Data was analyzed by thematic content analysis and descriptive statistics. The study found out that food taboos persisted in both study sites with more taboo adherence reported in Lundu than Bolero-A. Overall, women were most affected by food taboos due to gender dimensions of obedience, dependency and submissiveness which deterred women from making independent decisions on food and livestock production and food consumption. Food taboos might reduce women’s adaptive capacity to climate variability and might contribute to consumption of low nutrient diets, leading to under nutrition, especially, in pregnant women who had a range of tabooed foods. Although coping strategies to food taboos were in place, they were insufficient to guarantee access to adequate diets and improved adaptive capacity. Engagement with respondents through FGD’s, KII’s and participant’s observations made respondents aware of the devastating impact of food taboos. Respondents campaigned against harmful food taboos and negotiated for reconstruction of gender contracts. Traditional leaders advocated for elimination of harmful taboos while Government Extension staff re-designed project activities and extension message based on prevailing food taboos for attainment of balanced diets.