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Dietary Diversity May Play A Mediatory Role on the Association between Household Food Insecurity and Nutritional Status among Children Aged 24-59 Months

Research Article | DOI: https://doi.org/10.31579/2693-4779/001

Dietary Diversity May Play A Mediatory Role on the Association between Household Food Insecurity and Nutritional Status among Children Aged 24-59 Months

  • Ahmed A. Abdurahman 1*
  • Khadijeh Mirzaei 2
  • Ahmed Reza Dorosty 2
  • Rahimiforoushani 3

1* Independent Nutrition Consultant, and Ethiopian Public Health Association (EPHA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
2 Department of Community Nutrition, School of Nutritional Sciences and Dietetics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
3 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

*Corresponding Author: AhmedA.Abdurahman, Independent Nutrition Consultant, and Ethiopian Public Health Association (EPHA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Citation: Ahmed A. Abdurahman., K. Mirzaei., A.Rahimiforoushani., (2020) Dietary Diversity May Play a Mediatory Role on the Association between Household Food Insecurity and Nutritional Status among Children Aged 24-59 Months. Clinical Research and Clinical Trials, 1(1): Doi:10.31579/2693-4779/001

Copyright: © 2019 Ahmed A. Abdurahman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of The Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Received: 05 December 2019 | Accepted: 19 December 2019 | Published: 31 December 2019

Keywords: dietary diversity; undernutrition; child; preschool; Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Consuming scarce and poorly diversified diet, along with inadequate breastfeeding, contribute seriously to the complete scope of child undernutrition like stunting, wasting, underweight and micronutrient deficiency.
Objective: To determine the association between dietary diversity score (DDS) and nutritional status among children aged 24 to 59 months in Haromaya district, Ethiopia.
Methods: Children aged 24-59 months (N= 453) were enrolled in this cross-sectional study with a representative sample of households selected by a multistage sampling procedure in Haromaya district. Anthropometry and 24hr dietary recall were administered. Multinomial logistic regression models were applied to select variables that are candidate for multivariable model. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the mediatory effect of DDS on the relationship between household food insecurity (HFI) and child nutritional status.
Results: The mean DDS was 3.62 (SD 1.09), and 50% of the children indicated poor and average DDS with only 20% children in very good DDS. By logistic regression analysis and after adjusting for the confounding factors, poor DDS was highly significant predictor of wasting, stunting and underweight (AOR = 4.09, C.I = 1.31 - 12.76, p = .01), (AOR = 2.28, C.I = 1.11 - 4.69, p = .03) and (AOR = 2.48, C.I = 1.17 - 5.24, p = .02) respectively. HFI had a significant direct effect on wasting though no significant indirect effect on wasting through mediation variable, DDS, (β1 reduced from 0.06 (S.E. = 0.027, p < .05) to 0.05 (S.E. = 0.028, p > .05).
Conclusion: Poor DDS was a predictor of wasting, stunting and underweight. Additionally, DDS had a role in the association between HFI and nutritional status.

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