An Examination of the Relationships between Dietary Diversity, Nutritional Status, and Food Security across Seasons in Bangladesh

Abstract

ObjectivesDietary diversity has been shown to be closely correlated with calorie and micronutrient adequacy, however changes in seasonal dietary patterns and differences between populations can complicate the interpretation of this indicator.MethodsSeasonal, cross‐sectional data from three years of the Food Security and Nutrition Surveillance Project were aggregated, resulting in a data set of 57,912 adult women and 14,097 adolescent girls. Descriptive analysis and multivariate linear regression were used.ResultsAge corrected estimates of nutritional status for adolescent girls indicated that malnutrition rates are higher during the monsoon months, but the same relationship was not observed for adult women. In contrast, for both women's and adolescent girls' dietary diversity scores were significantly higher in the monsoon months, mimicking the seasonal variation observed in household diets. Overall, for adult women and adolescent girls, dietary diversity scores were associated with better nutritional status while food insecurity was associated with worsened nutritional status. However, in models stratified by food security the association between dietary diversity and better nutritional status only held for adult women and adolescent girls in food secure households. When stratified, the models for food secure households had a considerably better fit than that of food insecure households.ConclusionsThe interpretation of dietary diversity measures can vary by season and food security status, as such future research should examine in which season these indicators provide the most reliable measures. In addition, care must be taken in interpreting such measures in situations when food insecurity is high or increasing.