Adherence to complementary feeding indicators and their associations with coexisting forms of malnutrition in children aged between 6 to 23.9 months of age

Abstract

AbstractObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the relationship between different complementary feeding (CF) indicators and coexisting forms of malnutrition (CFM) in Pakistan.MethodologyThis study involves secondary data analysis of eight national and regional datasets of Pakistan, which were retrieved from the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) and UNICEF. From these datasets, data of children aged between 6 to 23.9 months was analysed after excluding incomplete and/or invalid data related to their feeding practices and anthropometry. Thus, data of 30,097 Pakistani children between the ages of 6 to 23.9 months was analysed in this study using Jamovi software.ResultsThe prevalence of CFM in this sample of children was 28.1%. Cereals and dairy were chiefly used for CF. With the exception of continuation of breastfeeding and coadministration of breastmilk with solid/semi-solid/soft food, adherence to all other CF indicators (minimum dietary diversity, minimum meal frequency, iron & folate consumption, egg & flesh food consumption, zero vegetable & fruit consumption) were associated with reduced odds of various forms of CFM.ConclusionNutritional adversities in children may be prevented by improving the dietary diversity, meal frequency, protein consumption, iron & folic acid (IFA) use, and food fortification.