Food group consumption patterns among children meeting and not meeting WHO’s recommended dietary diversity: Evidence from 197,514 children in 59 countries

Markus Heemann, Rockli Kim, Smriti Sharma, Sebastian Vollmer and S.V. Subramanian

Food Policy, 2022, vol. 112, issue C

Abstract: The minimum dietary diversity (MDD) indicator as defined by the WHO is commonly used to assess micronutrient deficiency in young children. However, individual food item-specific consumption patterns may be overlooked when focusing solely on this indicator. We provide a comprehensive view on food item and food group consumption patterns of children aged 6–23 months old using DHS data from 59 low- and middle-income countries. Consumption levels of food items ranged from 79.0 % for breastfeeding to 5.9 % for organ meats, showing particularly low levels for protein rich food items. There were significant differences in food item consumption levels for different countries as well as household correlates’ relevance such as a household’s wealth decile and the child’s age group, hinting towards potential underlying mechanisms such as regional availability, household’s available resources and awareness of food group’s importance from early age. The results suggest that the analysis of MDD should be complemented with information on individual food item consumption to identify priorities for policy makers aiming to fight undernutrition across the globe..

Keywords: Food group consumption; Food item consumption; Minimum Dietary Diversity; Child undernutrition; Nutrition inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919222001373
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:112:y:2022:i:c:s0306919222001373

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2022.102368

Access Statistics for this article

Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd

More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().