Childhood Stunting in Senegal: Between Local Knowledge, Social Norms, and Climate Change Challenges

Despite significant investments aimed at improving nutrition, childhood stunting in Senegal remains a major public health concern. This form of chronic malnutrition persists in part due to a still limited understanding of its social, cultural, and environmental causes. This article aims to examine the factors that explain childhood stunting, with particular attention to social norms and sociocultural practices relating to children, as well as local perceptions of climate change and its impacts on children’s nutrition, food security, and health. We adopted a qualitative, ethnographic approach to collect and analyze the perceptions, attitudes, and practices of caregivers, as well as those of key informants, regarding the nutrition of children under five and stunting. The study is representative of the country’s diverse ethnocultural zones, different residential settings (rural and urban), and the prevalence of stunting. At the community level, childhood stunting is a condition associated with the mother’s pregnancy and with social perceptions regarding the children’s nutrition, breastfeeding, and growth of the child. In addition, climate change affects the environment in which children live, grow, and are fed, thereby increasing their vulnerability to stunting. These causes are linked to deep rooted social factors such as social norms, family hierarchies, beliefs, and the environmental influences. However, these social dimensions are often insufficiently taken into account in the nutritional strategies of institutions.To design effective and sustainable interventions, it is crucial to integrate local perspectives within a socio ecological framework. This requires recognizing social norms, territorial knowledge, and community adaptive capacities in order to move beyond simply correcting nutritional gaps and to strengthen local resilience.