The overall objective of this research program is to build a greater understanding of diet changes among the poor and identify food policies and interventions to improve diet quality.
Deficiencies of essential micronutrients are now recognized as the most widespread nutritional problem facing the world today, especially among women and children.
Micronutrient malnutrition is a major contributor to child mortality and continues to stunt the growth, development, and learning potential of many millions of surviving children. As a result of the “nutrition transition”, hunger among the poor also manifests itself in over-consumption of cheap, energy-rich, but nutrient-poor, foods, leading to obesity in populations still affected by high rates of micronutrient deficiency. This nutrition transition, which is rooted in the processes of globalization, is not just affecting the affluent: obesity and related diseases are now problems for poor countries and poor people. It is emerging as a particular problem for women, even those with inadequate micronutrient intake and stunted children. These nutritional problems provide further health challenges: under-nutrition is linked with diarrheal diseases; micronutrient deficiencies increase the risk of infections; obesity leads to diet-related chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. Developing countries thus now face a double burden of malnutrition (under- and over-) and associated diseases (infectious and chronic). Policies are needed to address both micronutrient deficiency and obesity, sometimes in very different communities, sometimes in the same. This is a serious nutritional and public health challenge.
IFPRI’s diet quality program aims to help address this challenge through policy-relevant research. On micronutrients, our research focuses on the strategies that can improve diet quality among the poorest and most vulnerable, including women. On obesity, our research aims firstly to identify how globalization is affecting the problem among poor people in developing countries, and secondly, generating food policy options that can redirect this nutrition transition towards healthier outcomes. In both components, the program includes a particular emphasis on the opportunities presented by agricultural practices, policies and processes to support the promotion of diet quality among those at risk from under- and over-nutrition.
Research on agriculture and health linkages is subsumed within the activities of the Agriculture and Health Research Platform (AHRP) coordinated by IFPRI. For more information visit http://www.ifpri.org/ahrp/ahrp.asp
Research brochure on child undernutrition
