ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Nutrition and Sustainable Diets
Interplay of Individual and Food Environment Factors Shaping Diets in the Kisumu Urban Informal Settlements
Provisionally accepted
- 1Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT (Kenya), Nairobi, Kenya
- 2University of Nairobi Faculty of Agriculture, Nairobi, Kenya
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Malnutrition persists in Kenyan urban informal settlements, disproportionately affecting women and children. This study explores the complex interplay between individual-level and food environment factors and the on influence dietary outcomes for women and children in these settings. We focus on women of reproductive age (15–49 years) and children aged 6–23 months in four informal settlements in Kisumu, Kenya. Using a cross-sectional mixed-methods design, we mapped food vendors and conducted household surveys (n = 510) to assess socio-demographic characteristics, food shopping behavior, and dietary intake. Dietary outcome indicators included Dietary Diversity Scores, Dietary Species Richness, and fruit and vegetable (ProColor) diversity. Results show that less than 50% of women and children met the recommended Minimum Dietary Diversity, with diets heavily reliant on starchy foods. Our regression analyses significantly associate child age, maternal education, and marital status with child dietary outcomes. Marital status, nutrition attitudes, and food vendor density within the households' immediate food environment are positively associated with some maternal dietary outcomes. Moderation and mediation analyses reveal that these associations are both conditional and indirect. The association between food shopping frequency and Children's Dietary Diversity Scores (CDDS) was significantly stronger among older children (interaction effect = 0.01, p = 0.031), indicating an age-moderated effect. Additionally, wealth status and maternal education interaction significantly predicted both CDDS (interaction effect = 0.10, p = 0.047) and Children's Dietary Species Richness(interaction effect = 0.30, p = 0.013), suggesting that maternal education modifies the influence of wealth on children's diet. Among married women, food shopping frequency was more strongly associated with fruit and vegetable consumption (interaction effect = 0.12, p = 0.044). Conversely, significant negative interaction between vendor density in the immediate food environment and marital status predicted women's Dietary Species Richness (interaction effect = -0.06, p = 0.001), favoring greater species richness in the diets of unmarried women. Mediation analysis identified nutrition knowledge and nutrition attitudes as primary mediating pathways for dietary outcomes. These findings emphasize that improving diets in resource-poor settings requires holistic interventions that integrate structural access, socio-demographic realities, and cognitive drivers to foster resilient, equitable, and inclusive food systems.
Keywords: maternal diet, Child diet, Food Environment, Individual-level, urban informal settlements
Received: 28 Jul 2025; Accepted: 26 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Musita, Ngala, Abong, Akingbemisilu and TERMOTE. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Consolata Nolega Musita
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