Family Nutrition Guide

The Family Nutrition Guide is a practical guide that aims to improve the feeding and nutrition of families in developing countries. It is primarily written for health workers, nutritionists, agricultural extensionists or other development workers who design nutrition education materials and activities and work with people at community level. It should also be useful to mothers or other caregivers who want to know more about family feeding, as well as anyone training health staff and other community-level workers. The guide is divided into 11 topics that cover basic nutrition, family food security, meal planning, food hygiene and the special feeding needs of children, women and men, and of old, sick and malnourished people. Each topic provides a summary of up-to-date technical nutrition facts that can be used to prepare various nutrition education activities and materials: face-to-face education sessions with families and other community-level groups; nutrition education print material or material for other media (such as radio talks); or training material for staff in different sectors who deal with family nutrition. The nutrition facts of each topic are complemented by communication suggestions for people working directly with families and community groups. These suggestions describe the steps needed to prepare an education session, encourage participation and make the session more fun.