Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-12T13:32:53.240Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

STATE-LEVEL DIETARY DIVERSITY AS A CONTEXTUAL DETERMINANT OF NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF CHILDREN IN INDIA: A MULTILEVEL APPROACH

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2017

Kakoli Borkotoky ,
Sayeed Unisa  and
Ashish Kumar Gupta
Kakoli Borkotoky*
Affiliation:
Population Council, India Country Office, New Delhi, India
Sayeed Unisa
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Demography & Statistics, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India
Ashish Kumar Gupta
Affiliation:
Population Council, India Country Office, New Delhi, India
*
1Corresponding author. Email: borkotoky.kakoli@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

This study aimed to identify the determinants of nutritional status of children in India with a special focus on dietary diversity at the state level. Household-level consumption data from three rounds of the Consumer Expenditure Survey of the National Sample Survey Organization (1993–2012) were used. Information on the nutritional status of children was taken from the National Family Health Survey (2005–06). Dietary diversity indices were constructed at the state level to examine diversity in quantity of food consumed and food expenditure. Multilevel regression analysis was applied to examine the association of state-level dietary diversity and other socioeconomic factors with the nutritional status of children. It was observed that significant variation in childhood stunting, wasting and underweight could be explained by community- and state-level factors. The results indicate that dietary diversity has increased in India over time, and that dietary diversity at the state level is significantly associated with the nutritional status of children. Moreover, percentage of households with a regular salaried income in a state, percentage of educated mothers and mothers receiving antenatal care in a community are important factors for improving the nutritional status of children. Diversity in complementary child feeding is another significant determinant of nutritional status of children. The study thus concludes that increasing dietary diversity at the state level is an effective measure to reduce childhood malnutrition in India.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 26 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arimond, M. & Ruel, M. T. (2002) Progress in developing an infant and child feeding index: an example using the Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey 2000. FCND Discussion Paper No. 143. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC. URL: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/16388/1/fc030143.pdf (accessed 24th April 2014).Google Scholar
Arimond, M. & Ruel, M. T. (2004) Dietary diversity is associated with child nutritional status: evidence from 11 Demographic and Health Surveys. Journal of Nutrition 134(10), 2579–2585.Google Scholar
Block, S. A., Kiess, L., Webb, P., Kosen, S., Moench-Pfanner, R., Bloem, M. W. & Peter Timmer, C. (2004) Macro shocks and micro outcomes: child nutrition during Indonesia’s crisis. Economics and Human Biology 2(1), 21–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Borooah, V. K. (2009) Maternal Literacy and Child Malnutrition in India. URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/19833/1/MPRA_paper_19833.pdf on 22/08/2014 (accessed 25th August 2013).Google Scholar
Chakraborty, P. & Anderson, A. K. (2010) Predictors of overweight in children under 5 years of age in India. Current Research Journal of Social Sciences 2(3), 138–146.Google Scholar
Claeson, M., Bos, E. R., Mawji, T. & Pathmanathan, I. (2000) Reducing child mortality in India in the new millennium. Bulletin of World Health Organization 78, 1192–1199.Google ScholarPubMed
Darmon, N. & Drewnowski, A. (2008) Does social class predict diet quality? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 87, 1107–1700.Google Scholar
Das, S. & Bose, K. (2011) Assessment of nutritional status by anthropometric indices in Santal tribal children. Journal of Life Sciences 3(2), 81–85.Google Scholar
Drewnowski, A. & Popkin, B. M. (1997) The nutrition transition: new trends in the global diet. Nutrition Reviews 55(2), 31–43.Google Scholar
Gaiha, R., Kaicker, N., Imai, K., Kulkarni, V. S. & Thapa, G. (2012) Has dietary transition slowed down in India? An analysis based on 50th, 61st and 66th rounds of NSS. ASARC Working Paper 7. URL: http://www.rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp/academic/ra/dp/English/DP2012-15.pdf (accessed 3rd July 2014).Google Scholar
Gragnolati, M., Shekar, M., Das, G. M., Bredenkamp, C. & Lee, Y. K. (2005) India’s undernourished children: a call for reform and action. Health, Nutrition and Population Discussion Paper, World Bank. http://hetv.org/india/mh/nutrition/IndiaUndernourishedChildrenFinal.pdf (accessed 25th September 2014).Google Scholar
Griffiths, P., Madise, N., Whitworth, A. & Matthews, Z. (2004) A tale of two continents: a multilevel comparison of the determinants of child nutritional status from selected African and Indian regions. Health & Place 10, 183–199.Google Scholar
Haddad, L., Alderman, H., Appleton, S., Song, L. & Yohannes, Y. (2002) Reducing child undernutrition: how far does income growth take us? FCND Discussion Paper No. 137, International Food Policy Research Institute.Google Scholar
Harttgen, K., Klasen, S. & Vollmer, S. (2013) Economic growth and child undernutrition in Africa. Population and Development Review 39, 397–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatloy, A., Halland, J., Diarra, M. & Oshaug, A. (2000) Food variety, socioeconomic status and nutritional status in urban and rural areas in Koutiala (Mali). Public Health Nutrition 3, 57–65.Google Scholar
Kanjilal, B., Mazumdar, P. G., Mukherjee, M. & Rahman, M. H. (2010) Nutritional status of children in India: household socio-economic condition as the contextual determinant. International Journal for Equity in Health 9, 19.Google Scholar
Khanna, S. S. (1989) The agro-climatic approach in survey of Indian agriculture. The Hindu, Madras, pp. 28–35.Google Scholar
Kohli, D. S. & Singh, N. (1997) The Green Revolution in Punjab, India: The Economics of Technological Change. URL: https://people.ucsc.edu/~boxjenk/greenrev.pdf.Google Scholar
Levinson, F. J., Barney, J., Bassett, L. & Schultink, W. (2005) Generating further reductions of child malnutrition in india’s Bimaru states: what are the options now? Food Policy and Applied Nutrition Program Discussion Paper No. 33. URL: http://www.nutrition.tufts.edu/documents/fpan/wp33-bimaru_malnutrition.pdf (accessed 30th January 2015).Google Scholar
Macintyre, S. & Ellaway, A. (2000) Biological approaches: rediscovering the role of the physical and social environment. In Berkman, L. & Kawachi, I. (eds) Social Epidemiology. Oxford University Press, New York. pp. 174–190.Google Scholar
Madise, N. J., Matthews, Z. & Margetts, B. (1999) Heterogeneity of child nutritional status between households: a comparison of six Sub-Saharan African countries. Population Studies 53, 331–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mangeshkar, J. M. (2012) Nutritional status of children in India: an overview of socio-economic condition. Paripex – Indian Journal of Research 1(12), 9–19.Google Scholar
Nair, K. R. G. (2007) Malnourishment among children in India: a regional analysis. Political and Economic Weekly XLII, 37.Google Scholar
Nguyen, M. C. & Winters, P. (2011) The impact of migration on food consumption patterns: the case of Vietnam. Food Policy 36, 71–87.Google Scholar
Ogle, B. M., Hung, P. H. & Tuyet, H. T. (2001) Significance of wild vegetables in micronutrient intakes of women in Vietnam: an analysis of food variety. Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 10, 21–30.Google Scholar
Onyango, A., Koski, K. G. & Tucker, K. L. (2008) Food diversity versus breastfeeding choice in determining anthropometric status in rural Kenyan toddlers. International Journal of Epidemiology 27, 484–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pal, S. (1999) An analysis of childhood malnutrition in rural India: role of gender, income and other household characteristics. World Development 27(7), 1151–1171.Google Scholar
Patterson, R. E., Haines, P. S. & Popkin, B. M. (1994) Diet quality index: capturing a multidimensional behaviour. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 94(1), 57–64.Google Scholar
Popkin, B. M. (1994) The nutrition transition in low‐income countries: an emerging crisis. Nutrition Reviews 52(9), 285–298.Google Scholar
Popkin, B. M. (1998) The nutrition transition and its health implications in lower-income countries. Public Health Nutrition 1(1), 5–21.Google Scholar
Popkin, B. M. (2003) The nutrition transition in developing world. Development Policy Review 95(6), 581–597.Google Scholar
Popkin, B. M., Horton, S., Kim, S., Mahal, A. & Shuigao, J. (2001) Trends in diet, nutritional status, and diet-related non-communicable diseases in China and India: the economic costs of the nutrition transition. Nutrition Reviews 59(12), 379–390.Google Scholar
Psaki, S., Bhutta, Z. A., Ahmed, T., Ahmed, S., Bessong, P., Islam, M. et al. (2011) Household food access and child malnutrition: results from the eight-country MAL-ED study. Population Health Metrics 10, 24.Google Scholar
Ramalingaswami, V., Johnsson, U. & Rohde, J. (1996) The Asian Enigma. Progress of Nations. United Nations Children’s Fund, New York. URL: http://www.unicef.org/pon96/nuenigma.htm (accessed 30th December 2014).Google Scholar
Ravallion, M. (1990) Income effects on undernutrition. Economic Development and Cultural Change 38(3), 489–515.Google Scholar
Reddy, A. A. (2010) Regional disparities in food consumption patterns and nutritional intake in Andhra Pradesh, India. Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies 10(2), 125–134.Google Scholar
Ruel, M. T. (2002) Is dietary diversity an indicator of food security or dietary quality? A review of measurement issues and research needs. Discussion Paper, Food Consumption and Nutrition Division, International Food Policy Research Institute. URL: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/16386/1/fc030140.pdf (accessed 10th November 2013).Google Scholar
Shamsir, A., Ahmed, T., Roy, S. K., Alam, N. & Hossain, M. I. (2012) Determinants of under nutrition in children under 2 years of age from rural Bangladesh. Indian Pediatrics 49, 821–824.Google Scholar
Singh, A., Pathak, P. K., Chauhan, R. K. & Pan, W. (2011) Infant and child mortality in India in the last two decades: a geospatial analysis. PLoS One 6(11), e26856.Google Scholar
Smith, L. C. & Haddad, L. (2002) How potent is economic growth in reducing undernutrition? What are the pathways of impact? New cross-country evidence. Economic Development and Cultural Change 51, 55–76.Google Scholar
Subramanyam, M. A., Kawachi, I., Berkman, L. F. & Subramanian, S. V. (2011) Is economic growth associated with reduction in child undernutrition in India? PLoS Medicine 8(3), 1–15.Google Scholar
Svedberg, P. (2008) Declining child malnutrition: a reassessment. International Journal of Epidemiology 35(5), 1336–1346.Google Scholar
Taren, D. & Chen, J. (1993) A positive association between extended breast-feeding and nutritional status in rural Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 58, 862–867.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Torlesse, H., Kiess, L. & Bloem, M. W. (2003) Association of household rice expenditure with child nutritional status indicates a role for macroeconomic food policy in combating malnutrition. Journal of Nutrition 133(5), 1320–1325.Google Scholar
UNICEF (1990) Strategy for Improved Nutrition of Children and Women in Developing Countries. United Nations Children’s Fund, New York.Google Scholar
Verma, M. R., Datta, K. K., Mandal, S. & Tripathi, A. K. (2008) diversification of food production and consumption patterns in India. Journal of Agricultural & Food Information 8(3), 87–100.Google Scholar
Vollmer, S., Harttgen, K., Subramanyam, M. A, Finlay, J., Klasen, S. & Subramanian, S. V. (2014) Association between economic growth and early childhood undernutrition: evidence from 121 Demographic and Health Surveys from 36 low-income and middle-income countries. Lancet Global Health 2, e225–e234.Google Scholar
WHO (2006) Multicentre Growth Reference Study Group WHO Child Growth Standards: Methods and Development. World Health Organization, Geneva. URL: http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/technical report/en/index.html.Google Scholar