Current Developments in Nutrition

Abstract

Background

The WHO-UNICEF minimum dietary diversity (MDD) indicator for children aged 6–23 months is a global monitoring indicator used to track multi-year population-level changes in dietary quality, but the influence of seasonality on MDD estimates remains unclear.

Objective

Examine how seasonality of data collection may influence population-level MDD estimates and inferences about MDD change over multiple survey years.

Methods

Abstract

Background

Anemia is an etiologically heterogeneous condition affecting over half of preschool-aged children in South Asia. An urgent need exists to elucidate context-specific causes of anemia to effectively address this issue.

Objective

This study investigated national trends and stability in the prevalence of child anemia and associated risk factors from 2013–2016.

Design

Urbanization is occurring rapidly in many low- and middle-income countries, which may affect households’ livelihoods, diet, and food security and nutritional outcomes.

The main objective of our study was to explore whether agricultural activity amongst a peri-urban population in Nepal was associated with better or worse food household security, household and maternal dietary diversity, and nutritional outcomes for children and women.

Children’s dietary patterns vary seasonally, particularly in subsistence agriculture settings like Nepal, but the seasonality of nutritious non-staple food consumption is not well explored in the literature.