Diálogos sobre la alimentación del menor de dos años: estudio de caso con población indígena y personal de salud en Leticia, Amazonas, Colombia

Abstract

Preventive interventions against malnutrition often show low levels of effectiveness. One of the reasons for this is the lack of knowledge about the alimentary culture of target populations among health workers. The goal of this article is to present an analysis of the discourse and practice associated with the nutrition of indigenous children below two years of age in Leticia, a township in Colombian Amazonia. The findings of this research show that the alimentary practices of caretakers of these children differ from the practices recommended by health workers, specially on the fo-llowing points: a) for the introduction of foodstuffs, attention is paid only to the development stage of a child, while the child’s age is not taken into account; b) the introduction of foodstuffs depends on the availability of money and regional foodstuffs, which does not correspond to predetermined Colombian alimentary guides; c) fish is one of the first foodstuffs to be introduced, contrary to recommendations of health workers; and d) red meats are generally introduced four to eight months later than recommended by health workers. All these factors, unknown by health workers, contribute to a low level of effectiveness of preventive interventions and favor morbimortality in this age goup.