Improving Diet Quality Among Infants and Young Children: Challenges and Potential Solutions Purnima Menon International Food Policy Research Institute Workshop on The Feed the Future Zone in the South and the Rest of Bangladesh: A Comparison of Food Security Aspects 16 January 2013 Dhaka 1
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Improving diet quality among infants and young children
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Improving Diet Quality Among Infants and Young Children: Challenges and
Potential Solutions
Purnima Menon International Food Policy Research Institute
Workshop on
The Feed the Future Zone in the South and the Rest of Bangladesh:
A Comparison of Food Security Aspects 16 January 2013
Dhaka 1
Why care about diet quality?
• Diet quality (as measured by proxy indicators such a diversity) is associated with better nutritional outcomes for children
• Diet quality for young children, especially diversity, is known to be a problem in most developing countries
2 Zongrone et al., Public Health Nutrition, 2012
IYCF practices in the FTF zone compared to the rest of the country
3 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Exclusive breastfeeding under 6 months
Continued breastfeeding at 1 year
Introduction of solid, semi-solid or soft foods
Minimum dietary diversity (4+ food groups)
Minimum meal frequency
Minimum acceptable diet
Consumption of iron-rich or iron-fortified foods
BDHS
BIHS
FTF
Timely introduction of high nutrient-value foods is low (BIHS sample)
Before 6 mo
6-8.9 mo After 9 mo
Complementary food % % %
Water 69.8 29.0 1.2 Other non-breast milk liquids (e.g. sugar/glucose water, tea, fruit juice, etc.)
• FTF and BIHS data affirm the significant challenge of ensuring nutritionally adequate infant and young child diets
• Poor feeding practices and low use of micronutrient supplements poor nutrient quality of diets, overall
• Early results from evaluation research suggest interventions such as those implemented by Alive & Thrive have potential to improve diet quality through high quality, high coverage interventions
• A significant challenge, seen in the BIHS, is that overall access to interventions (mass media and health worker counseling) that can improve IYCF is currently lower than desirable
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Next steps
• Further disaggregated descriptive analysis, not just by age, gender and SES, but also other maternal and household characteristics
• Empirical analyses and research papers on: – Predictors of anthropometric outcomes and IYCF
practices
– Links between agriculture and nutritional outcomes