Household food security and breast-feeding duration among Canadian Inuit

• Published in: Public Health Nutrition
• Main Authors: McIsaac, Kathryn E, Stock, David C, Lou, Wendy
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2016
• Subjects: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health; Nutrition and Dietetics; Medicine (miscellaneous); Nunavut; inuit
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s136898001600166x; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S136898001600166X

Abstract Objective There have been few studies investigating the association between food security and breast-feeding duration and none have been conducted among Canadian Inuit, a population disproportionately burdened with food insecurity. We evaluated the association between household food security and breast-feeding duration in Canadian Inuit children. Design Data were obtained from the Nunavut Inuit Child Health Survey, a population-based cross-sectional survey. Setting The Canadian Territory of Nunavut in 2007 and 2008. Subjects Caregivers of Inuit children aged 3–5 years. Participating children were randomly sampled from community medical centre lists. Results Out of 215 children, 147 lived in food-insecure households (68·4 %). Using restricted mean survival time models, we estimated that children in food-secure households were breast-fed for 16·8 (95 % CI 12·5, 21·2) months and children in food-insecure households were breast-fed for 21·4 (95 % CI 17·9, 24·8) months. In models adjusting for social class, traditional knowledge and child health, household food security was not associated with breast-feeding duration (hazard ratio=0·82, 95 % CI 0·58, 1·14). Conclusions Our research does not support the hypothesis that children living in food-insecure households were breast-fed for a longer duration than children living in food-secure households. However, we found that more than 50 % of mothers in food-insecure households continued breast-feeding well beyond 1 year. Many mothers in food-secure households also continued to breast-feed beyond 1 year. Given the high prevalence of food insecurity in Inuit communities, we need to ensure infants and their caregivers are being adequately nourished to support growth and breast-feeding, respectively.