Egg and/or Flesh Food Consumption by Children

The World Health Organisation states that both breastfed and non-breastfed children aged 6 - 23 months should be fed egg and/or flesh foods daily or as often as possible. These foods promote increased intake of the nutrients essential for reaching growth potential. Therefore, this indicator assesses the proportion of children 6 - 23 months of age who consumed egg and/or flesh food during the previous day.

There are two main ways to determine the indicator’s value. Both require conducting individual interviews with caregivers (responsible for child feeding) of a representative sample of children aged 6 - 23 months:

1) Using Data from Measuring Dietary Diversity

When measuring children’s dietary diversity (see guidance), the questionnaire recommended by WHO/UNICEF also records whether a child consumed an egg and/or flesh food during the previous day. You can use this data to determine the indicator’s value.

2) Asking Directly

If you do not use the questionnaire mentioned above, you should only use the following questions:

Q1: Yesterday, did [child’s name] consume an egg?

A1: yes / no / does not know

Q2:  Yesterday, did [child’s name] consume any meat? This can include any of the following:

    - fresh fish, dried fish or shellfish

    - liver, kidney, heart or [insert other commonly consumed organ meats]

    - sausages, hot dogs, ham, bacon, salami, canned meat or [insert other commonly consumed processed meats]

    - any other meat, such as beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken, duck or [insert other commonly consumed meat]

A2:  yes / no / does not know

To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of children aged 6 - 23 months who consumed egg and/or flesh food during the previous day by the total number of surveyed children aged 6 - 23 months (excluding those where the "does not know" answer was provided). Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

Disaggregate the data by gender, age group and household wealth. 

1) Flesh food includes various types of meat, including fish, poultry and organ meats.

2) In many contexts, dietary diversity is prone to seasonal differences (due to affordability / availability of different foods). Do your best to collect baseline and endline data from the same time of year; otherwise, you will receive two sets of data that are not comparable. Avoid collecting data during the fasting periods (such as pre-Easter or Ramadan).

3) If the caregiver is taking care of two children aged 6 - 23 months (from the same household) and household sampling has been used, then data should be collected for both children. If a list method has been used and children have been identified as the primary sampling unit, then data should only be collected for the sampled child.

4) This indicator relies on an accurate age assessment. Since people often do not remember the exact dates of their children’s birth, the enumerators should always verify the child’s age. This can be done by reviewing the child’s birth certificate, vaccination card or another document; however, since many caregivers do not have such documents (and since they can include mistakes), it is essential that the enumerators are able to verify the child’s age by using local events calendars. Read FAO’s Guidelines (see below) to learn how to prepare local events calendars and how to train enumerators in their correct use.