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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Elodie Becquey

Elodie Becquey is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit, based in IFPRI’s West and Central Africa office in Senegal. She has over 15 years of research experience in diet, nutrition, and food security in Africa, including countries such as Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, and Tanzania.

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experts

Nutrition, Diets, and Health

Jef L. Leroy

Senior Research Fellow

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Bio

Jef Leroy is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit, where he studies the impact of nutrition-sensitive agriculture and social protection programs on maternal and child nutrition. His evaluation studies use experimental designs combined with process evaluations and costing studies. Jef currently works on the evaluation of a social protection program in Bangladesh designed to improve birth outcomes and on the evaluation of a training and certification program aimed at improving the quality of milk sold by informal vendors in Nairobi. In addition, he studies the role of food environments in adolescent nutrition in urban areas in Ghana, Viet Nam, and Ethiopia and conducts research on child wasting and on the use of child linear growth in development.

Jef recently completed the evaluation of two large-scale food-assisted maternal and child health and nutrition programs in Burundi and Guatemala. His previous research focused on the impact of aflatoxin on child linear growth in Kenya and Mexico. Before joining IFPRI, Jef was a research associate in the Center for Evaluation Research and Surveys at Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health, where he worked on the evaluation of the urban and rural Oportunidades programs and of the Programa de Apoyo Alimentario (a cash and in-kind transfer program).

Jef, a Belgian citizen, has a PhD in international nutrition from Cornell University, US, and an MSc in agricultural and applied biological sciences from Ghent University, Belgium.

Languages spoken: Dutch, English, French, Spanish

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Publications

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Journal Article

Preventing relapse from wasting: the role of sociodemographic, child feeding, and health care determinants and of wasting prevention interventions in Burkina Faso and Mali

2025Brander, Rebecca L.; Toure, Mariama; Becquey, Elodie; Ruel, Marie T.; Leroy, Jef L.; Huybregts, Lieven
Details

Preventing relapse from wasting: the role of sociodemographic, child feeding, and health care determinants and of wasting prevention interventions in Burkina Faso and Mali

Background Relapse among children treated for wasting is a major concern. We estimated the frequency and determinants of relapse to wasting in two populations exposed to PROMIS, an integrated wasting prevention and screening program. Methods Using longitudinal data from PROMIS trials in Burkina Faso and Mali, we calculated the incidence rate and period prevalence of relapse to wasting within 6 months in children who had ≥1 wasting episode ending when they were ≥6 months old for which they were treated and recovered (NBurkina Faso=247; NMali=220). We used backward elimination to select a multivariable model of sociodemographic, nutrition- and health-related determinants of relapse. We also evaluated if prevention interventions (behavior change communication (BCC) and/or small quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS) were associated with relapse, adjusting for confounders and trial arm. Results Relapse incidence was 2.6 per child-year in Burkina Faso (N=291 episodes) and 1.6 per child-year in Mali (N=300 episodes). In both countries, being fed the recommended food frequency or iron-rich foods after recovering from wasting was associated with lower risk of relapse. In Mali, longer wasting episodes, lack of minimally diverse diet consumption, and several caregiver/household characteristics were associated with lower risk of relapse. In both countries, receipt of BCC after recovery from wasting was associated with lower risk of relapse (Incidence rate ratio [IRR]Burkina Faso = 0.51 [95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.30, 0.86]; IRRMali = 0.26 [95% CI = 0.11, 0.65]), as was receipt of SQ-LNS (IRRBurkina Faso = 0.33 [95% CI = 0.16, 0.70]; (IRRMali = 0.43 [95% CI = 0.19, 0.94]), after adjustments. Conclusion Children being discharged from wasting treatment are a well-defined vulnerable population who stand to benefit from targeted post-discharge preventive interventions. BCC that includes advice on optimal infant and young child feeding practices and SQ-LNS may help prevent wasting relapse in at-risk children.

Year published

2025

Authors

Brander, Rebecca L.; Toure, Mariama; Becquey, Elodie; Ruel, Marie T.; Leroy, Jef L.; Huybregts, Lieven

Citation

Brander, Rebecca L.; Toure, Mariama; Becquey, Elodie; Ruel, Marie T.; Leroy, Jef L.; and Huybregts, Lieven. 2025. Preventing relapse from wasting: the role of sociodemographic, child feeding, and health care determinants and of wasting prevention interventions in Burkina Faso and Mali. Journal of Nutrition 155(9): 2945-2954. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2025.06.019

Country/Region

Burkina Faso; Mali

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Northern Africa; Child Feeding; Nutrition; Recuperation; Wasting Disease (nutritional Disorder)

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2025.06.019 Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Perspective: Growth monitoring and promotion as an opportunity to improve early childhood development

2025Larson, Leila M.; Frongillo, Edward A.; Akter, Fahmida; Wooten, Shelbie; Brander, Rebecca L.; Ruel, Marie T.; Leroy, Jef L.
Details

Perspective: Growth monitoring and promotion as an opportunity to improve early childhood development

Growth monitoring and promotion (GMP) visits provide a frequent contact point with caregivers which can be an opportunity for the promotion of early child development (ECD). Using a combination of quantitative analyses of longitudinal and cross-sectional data and a review of the literature, we investigated whether the GMP platform could improve ECD by identifying children at risk of poor development and delivering responsive parenting education to caregivers of young children. Cross-sectional and lagged regression analyses and area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) indicated that growth indices were not accurate predictors of concurrent and later child development. Rather, validated tools, such as the Ages and Stages Questionnaire or the Survey of Well-being of Young Children, could be utilized during GMP visits to screen individual children for suboptimal development. Through a review of published literature on ECD interventions, we identified 10 light-touch ECD interventions which could feasibly be implemented during GMP visits, but only half have been evaluated for their effectiveness. Our findings demonstrate that, while growth indices cannot accurately identify children at risk of suboptimal development, the GMP platform could offer an opportunity to screen children for suboptimal development and to deliver ECD interventions. Further evidence on the implementation and effectiveness of light-touch parenting programs, however, is required.

Year published

2025

Authors

Larson, Leila M.; Frongillo, Edward A.; Akter, Fahmida; Wooten, Shelbie; Brander, Rebecca L.; Ruel, Marie T.; Leroy, Jef L.

Citation

Larson, Leila M.; Frongillo, Edward A.; Akter, Fahmida; Wooten, Shelbie; Brander, Rebecca L.; et al. 2025. Perspective: Growth monitoring and promotion as an opportunity to improve early childhood development. Advances in Nutrition 16(8): 100470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advnut.2025.100470

Keywords

Child Growth; Child Development; Monitoring

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advnut.2025.100470 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Accuracy of using weight and length in children under 24 mo to screen for early childhood obesity: A systematic review

2025Boncyk, Morgan; Leroy, Jef L.; Brander, Rebecca L.; Larson, Leila M.; Ruel, Marie T.; Frongillo, Edward A.
Details

Accuracy of using weight and length in children under 24 mo to screen for early childhood obesity: A systematic review

The global increase in early childhood overweight and obesity has prompted interest in early prediction of overweight and obesity to allow timely intervention and prevent lifelong consequences. A systematic review was conducted to assess the accuracy and feasibility of predicting overweight and obesity in individual children aged 3–7 y using data available in healthcare and community settings on children aged under 24 mo. This review was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42024509603) and followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. From 7943 unique articles identified through PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and Google Scholar, 14 studies met the inclusion criteria, 13 from high-income countries and 1 from a middle-income country. These studies evaluated the accuracy of predicting childhood overweight or obesity in individual children using anthropometrics-alone or multiple-predictor models. Anthropometrics-alone models yielded areas under the curve (AUCs) ≥ 0.56 with expert guidance and ≥0.77 with machine learning. Multiple-predictor models yielded AUC ≥ 0.68 with expert guidance and ≥0.76 with machine learning. The inclusion of child, parental, and community predictors improved predictive accuracy but led to greater variation in performance across models. Models were more accurate when children were older at the initial assessment, multiple assessments were made, and the time between assessment and outcome prediction was shorter. Prediction models with an AUC ≥ 0.70 used machine learning to optimize variable selection, limiting their practicality for broad-scale implementation in healthcare or community settings. There is insufficient evidence on the accuracy of overweight and obesity prediction models for children in low- and middle-income countries. Existing prediction models are not well-suited for broad-scale screening of individual children for risk of early childhood overweight or obesity.

Year published

2025

Authors

Boncyk, Morgan; Leroy, Jef L.; Brander, Rebecca L.; Larson, Leila M.; Ruel, Marie T.; Frongillo, Edward A.

Citation

Boncyk, Morgan; Leroy, Jef L.; Brander, Rebecca L.; Larson, Leila M.; Ruel, Marie T.; and Frongillo, Edward A. 2025. Accuracy of using weight and length in children under 24 mo to screen for early childhood obesity: A systematic review. Advances in Nutrition 16(7): 100452. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advnut.2025.100452

Keywords

Body Weight; Children; Length; Obesity; Anthropometry; Assessment

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advnut.2025.100452 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Growth monitoring and promotion as an opportunity to improve early childhood development
IFPRI Blog
 | 
November 13, 2025

Growth monitoring and promotion as an opportunity to improve early childhood development

By Leila M. Larson, Edward A. Frongillo, Rebecca Brander, Marie Ruel, and Jef L. Leroy

Leveraging a widespread practice.

Screening for early childhood obesity: What can we learn from growth monitoring data?
IFPRI Blog
 | 
October 22, 2025

Screening for early childhood obesity: What can we learn from growth monitoring data?

By Morgan Boncyk, Jef L. Leroy, Rebecca Brander, Leila M. Larson, Marie Ruel, and Edward A. Frongillo

Focusing on risks for children under 5.

What are kids watching online? How digital food marketing shapes children’s and adolescents’ diets
IFPRI Blog
 | 
April 03, 2025

What are kids watching online? How digital food marketing shapes children’s and adolescents’ diets

By Gabriela Fretes and Jef L. Leroy

A study shows the influence of social media.

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Events

EAT Stockholm Food Forum 2025
IFPRI at External Event

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October 3 to 4, 2025

EAT Stockholm Food Forum 2025

The Stockholm Food Forum, convened by EAT, is an invitation only event open to individuals and actors from across food systems, including representatives of Science, Policy, Business and Civil Society. The Theme of this year’s forum is “Engage, Act, Transform” asking the food system community to engage with the knowledge carried by the Commission and […]

23rd International Congress of Nutrition (ICN)
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

August 24 to 29, 2025

23rd International Congress of Nutrition (ICN)

IFPRI is participating in the 23rd International Congress of Nutrition (ICN), hosted by the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) on August 24-29 in Paris, France.  The theme of this year’s congress is “Sustainable Food for Global Health,” bringing together experts to discuss evidence and innovations in nutrition, sustainability, food science, and public health. IFPRI […]

10th annual Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH) Academy Week
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

June 16 to 26, 2025

10th annual Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH) Academy Week

IFPRI is participating in the 10th annual Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH) Academy Week from June 16-26, 2025. The ANH Academy Week is a series of annual events that bring together the community of researchers, practitioners and policymakers working at the intersection of agriculture, food systems, nutrition and health. The objective of the ANH Academy […]

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News

September 03, 2025 | Press Release

Celebrating 50 Years of Impact and Informing Food Policies Across Africa

IFPRI marks its 50th anniversary with a special event at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Dakar.

August 29, 2025 | Press Release

IFPRI at Africa Food Systems Forum 2025

IFPRI’s delegation at AFSF 2025—including Director General and senior researchers—will participate in plenary sessions, high-level panels, side and special events as part of the wider CGIAR delegation at AFSF.

July 31, 2025 | Press Release

New study finds behavior change communication and nutrition supplements can help prevent relapse from child wasting

The study, published in The Journal of Nutrition, used longitudinal data from two cluster-randomized trials in Burkina Faso and Mali, the PROMIS project.

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