Improving children’s diet: approach and progress

Worldwide, fewer than one third of children aged 6-24 months receive adequate dietary diversity and only about half receive a sufficient number of meals each day. Such suboptimal complementary feeding practices put millions of infants at risk for stunting and developmental delays.  Food insecurity and/or limited access to high quality foods continue during the preschool age years with implications for poor development and increased risk of facing the dual or even triple burden of malnutrition associated with protein-energy malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies as well as overweight or obesity.

In this presentation, U. Ramakrishnan presents strategies to improve the adequacy of dietary intakes in young children including both dietary quality and quantity of food consumed. The presentation highlights key findings from various studies with a focus on the ones conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia.