TY - JOUR
T1 - Diet quality over time is associated with better development in rural Nepali children
AU - Miller, Laurie C.
AU - Neupane, Sumanta
AU - Joshi, Neena
AU - Shrestha, Merina
AU - Neupane, Shailes
AU - Lohani, Mahendra
AU - Thorne-Lyman, Andrew L.
N1 - Funding Information:
We sincerely thank the participating children and their families. We also gratefully acknowledge the support of Heifer Nepal staff and Valley Research field enumerators. Tor Strand, Mari Hysing, and Ingrid Kvestad provided invaluable assistance. Dr Laxman Shrestha (Institute of Medicine, Nepal) also provided essential support. Support for this effort was provided by the Feed the Future Food Innovation Lab for Nutrition, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Maternal & Child Nutrition published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2020/7/1
Y1 - 2020/7/1
N2 - Developmental delays affect between 150 and 200 million children <5 years of age worldwide. Outside of diet supplement studies, relatively little is known about the relationships between diet quality and developmental status in resource-poor settings. We examined associations between different aspects of dietary quality (dietary diversity score [DDS] and animal-source food [ASF] consumption) and child development (assessed using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-3 [ASQ-3]) among children whose families were enrolled in a community development intervention trial (implemented by Heifer Nepal) in western Nepal. Two sets of analyses were performed: (a) cross-sectional Sample (N = 629) seen at the endline survey and (b) longitudinal sample (N = 269) with complete dietary records (six surveys over 48 months). In both samples, child development was significantly related to household wealth, maternal education, and especially home environmental quality. In the cross-sectional sample, greater consumption of eggs (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.80, p =.04) or dairy products (aOR 0.95, p =.05) over the previous 7 days significantly reduced odds of low total ASQ score, by logistic regression analysis. In the longitudinal sample, only egg consumption and cumulative DDS and ASF scores were associated with significantly reduced odds of low total ASQ score (aORs 0.59–0.89). In adjusted linear regression analysis, both cumulative DDS (β [CI]: 1.92 [0.4, 3.5]) and ASF scores (2.46 [0.3, 4.7]) were significantly associated with greater continuous total child development. Programmes targeting child development must address home environmental quality as well as long-term diet quality.
AB - Developmental delays affect between 150 and 200 million children <5 years of age worldwide. Outside of diet supplement studies, relatively little is known about the relationships between diet quality and developmental status in resource-poor settings. We examined associations between different aspects of dietary quality (dietary diversity score [DDS] and animal-source food [ASF] consumption) and child development (assessed using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-3 [ASQ-3]) among children whose families were enrolled in a community development intervention trial (implemented by Heifer Nepal) in western Nepal. Two sets of analyses were performed: (a) cross-sectional Sample (N = 629) seen at the endline survey and (b) longitudinal sample (N = 269) with complete dietary records (six surveys over 48 months). In both samples, child development was significantly related to household wealth, maternal education, and especially home environmental quality. In the cross-sectional sample, greater consumption of eggs (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.80, p =.04) or dairy products (aOR 0.95, p =.05) over the previous 7 days significantly reduced odds of low total ASQ score, by logistic regression analysis. In the longitudinal sample, only egg consumption and cumulative DDS and ASF scores were associated with significantly reduced odds of low total ASQ score (aORs 0.59–0.89). In adjusted linear regression analysis, both cumulative DDS (β [CI]: 1.92 [0.4, 3.5]) and ASF scores (2.46 [0.3, 4.7]) were significantly associated with greater continuous total child development. Programmes targeting child development must address home environmental quality as well as long-term diet quality.
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U2 - 10.1111/mcn.12964
DO - 10.1111/mcn.12964
M3 - Article
C2 - 32048475
AN - SCOPUS:85079413030
VL - 16
JO - Maternal and Child Nutrition
JF - Maternal and Child Nutrition
SN - 1740-8695
IS - 3
M1 - e12964
ER -