About 77 per cent of children in India aged 6-23 months lack diversity in diet as suggested by the World Health Organization, with the country’s central region showing the highest prevalence of minimum dietary failure, a study has found. The states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh reported the highest levels of inadequate diversity in children's diets -- all above 80 per cent -- while Sikkim and Meghalaya were the only two to report an under-50 per cent prevalence. The WHO suggests using the Minimum Dietary Diversity (MDD) score to evaluate the quality of a child's diet -- it is considered to be diverse if it contains five or more food groups, including breastmilk, eggs, legumes and nuts, and fruits and vegetables.
Analysing National Family and Health Survey data from 2019-21 (NFHS-5), researchers, including those from the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, found that the country's overall rate of minimum dietary diversity failure has dropped from 87.4 per cent, which was calculated using data from 2005-06 (NFHS-3). However, "our study shows that the prevalence of minimum dietary diversity failure remains high (above 75 per cent) in India," the authors wrote in the study published in the National Medical Journal of India .
The team also looked at children's dietary habits across various food groups like proteins and vitamins, comparing data from 2019-21 with that from 2005-06. The consumption of eggs registered an "impressiv.