Examining Patterns and Trends of Household Food Consumption of in the City of Ati (Chad)

Abstract

Households in Ati face high food consumption costs which determine different states of food and nutritional security. This study was carried out with the aim of analyzing household food consumption in order to contribute to better knowledge of the food and nutritional situation and to inform stakeholders working in the field of food security so that they can better guide their intervention strategies. A prospective, cross-sectional descriptive research survey was adopted for the study and was conducted from 15 April to 14 June 2022 in the city of Ati. The study involved 135 households selected in the neighborhoods of the city of Ati. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey form and then processed using Excel 2016. The food consumption score was used to reflect dietary diversity, frequency of consumption as well as household nutritional intake relative to products and food groups consumed individually. Results showed that more than a third of households (38.52%) consumed at least 3 meals per day and more than half of the households surveyed (54.07%) had 2 meals per day. The group of cereals and tubers is the most consumed by the majority of households. The results show that 30.60% of households surveyed had a poor ACS, 63.60% had a borderline ACS and 5.80% had an acceptable ACS. It emerges that 76.6% of households have low AMDS, 17.9% have average diversity and only 5.50% have good dietary diversity.