http://www.euronews.com/ In a part of southern Kenya where malnutrition is rife, Stanley is an active three year old boy.

Along with hundreds of other Kenyan youngsters, he is part of a research project aimed at fighting child malnutrition in Africa. The findings so far have surprised researchers.

School dinners at a school in Kibwezi include an unusual experiment.

Scientists are looking at two varieties of cassava, a major source of carbohydrate in Africa.

Researchers hope that adding micronutrients to local staple foodstuffs will help fight malnutrition.

Elise Talsma is a nutritionist from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “In Sub-Saharan Africa, 70 per cent of the intake comes from staple food like cassava, or maize, or millet, or sorghum,” she told euronews, “but those staple foods don’t contain a lot of micronutrients. So if we can increase the micronutrient content of this food, that could have a great impact.”

Yellow cassava is richer in vitamin A than the white variety, but there is less of it about.

Scientists want to know if including yellow cassava in the diet regularly would improve the health of malnourished children.

So researchers pitched in for some science-based cooking.

The cook at Thange School, Regina Mbula, told us: “We peel and boil white and yellow cassava separately for around 45 minutes. We then add vegetable oil and mash to get yellow and white cassava puree.”

Both types of cassava mash are then served to different groups of young volunteers. For some, it is their only proper meal of the day.

An assistant at the school, Ann Mueni Mutuku, explained: “Each child gets the same amount of food every day, during the study, depending on their ages. It is between 375 and 400 grams for the younger ones and 425 to 450 grams for the older children.”

Yellow cassava has higher levels of betacarotene, a pigment that the body can easily convert into vitamin A.

Researchers think that yellow cassava can provide children with around 50 percent of their daily vitamin A needs but they need to confirm that in the lab.

Elise Talsma told us: “We can quantify (cassava) intake. And then we can hopefully see how the levels of vitamin A are increasing in the volunteers’ blood. In that way, we know how much betacarotene increases those levels. So then we can calculate how good (sic) your body absorbs the betacarotene from the cassava.”

Vitamin A is just one of many micronutrients that African and European researchers are investigating in the fight against child malnutrition in Africa.

*Tracking Stanley*

In his village near Mombasa, it is Stanley’s lunch time.

His mother laces his normal maize-flour porridge with a special blend containing an iron supplement.

Scientists want to know if the mineral is improving Stanley’s cognitive development.

His mother Alice Mutala has no doubts.

“Since the study started, I feed Stanley every day with this iron-enriched meal,” she said. “He loves this porridge. And I think that thanks to this he is more active and healthier than other children of his age.”

That is exactly what researchers are trying to establish. They monitor every detail of Stanley’s daily activities.

Child development assessor at the Kikoneni Health Centre, Khassim Mashobo, told euronews: “I follow him for about an hour. I note who he communicates with, how much he speaks and how he vocalises. I also look at his mobility, if he is sitting, or standing, or running, or playing – whether he is alone or with somebody else. And I watch his emotions, like anger, happiness or sadness, and his behaviour.”

Stanley also goes to a nearby clinic where he undergoes extra examinations.

Another assessor at the health centre, Munaa Lila, explained: “We measure his responses to various stimuli, both sound and vision. We play games with him that he knows. And we track his reactions, his reactivity and his body language.”

Developmental psychologists compare data from children receiving doses of iron and those given a placebo.

They think small doses of iron or zinc can have a major impact on a child’s development.

Developmental psychologist at the International Centre for Behavioural Studies, Penny Holding said: “We are looking at their activity levels, because those are the ones that are actually the most sensitive to iron issues. So how much they are able to interact with their environment. The theoretical construct is that if you engage with your environment more, you learn more and you develop more quickly.”

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Professor Anders Levermann explains why rising sea levels caused by climate change pose such a risk.

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A poll suggests that Gdynia is the ‘happiest city’ in Poland. This may be linked to its ambitious project for greener public mobility planning.

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After months of political pressure, the European Commission has presented a formal proposal to prevent high gas prices.

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The former Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, has given an exclusive interview to euronews as he visited our new bureau in Brussels. He spoke about the Libyan crisis, the situation in Syria, his presidential ambitions in Egypt and Arab-Israeli relations.

Charles Salamé, euronews:
“Secretary General welcome to euronews. With the European Union immersed in economic crises in countries like Greece, do you believe it is capable of giving proper sustainable economic support to the Arab countries undergoing change?”

Amr Moussa:
…
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