ABSTRACT
Already from an early date the nutritional conditions in Central Province were a matter of concern. The Kikuyu served as suppliers of grain to the exploratory expeditions and early traders in East Africa (Rogers, 1979), but there is also repeated mention of famines (Cranworth, 1939) and of malnutrition among destitute individuals and households (Paterson, 1943). An important responsibility of the colonial administration, early in the century, was to secure the food supply of the region, to regulate the food trade, and to set up relief programmes in cases of emergency. Initially relief programmes tended to be incidental in times of famines, but later they became institutionalized. Since 1950, when attention of health workers started to focus on childhood malnutrition, nutrition intervention was increasingly aimed at young children. It was developed along three different lines: first of all, the treatment and care of cases of protein-energy malnutrition; secondly, food aid to children from poor and destitute families (particularly during the social upheaval of the Emergency in the 1950s); and thirdly, general prevention in the form of nutrition education as part of the general health services. The major existing nutrition programmes clearly reflect these three developments. The Nutrition Field Workers represent the general
educational approach, the Pre-School Health Programme is a food supplementation programme and the Family Life Training Centres belong to the category of nutrition rehabilitation centres. Further description of the programmes and of our study locations follows below; the major characteristics of the programmes and the selected clinics are summarized in Table 12.
