Predictors of malnourishment in mother-child dyads in India

It is estimated that more than one-third of the world's adult population is overweight or obese. While the highest prevalence of obese/overweight adults is found in developed countries, obese/overweight adults are increasing in prevalence in developing countries. In India, 15% of ever-married women between the ages of 15 and 49 years are overweight or obese. In many countries, including India, overweight/obesity is becoming a problem while underweight continues to be a challenge. The phenomenon has been termed the “dual burden of malnutrition”. Within the context of the household, the dual burden often manifests as an overweight/obese mother and an underweight child (O/U) but the prevalence of overweight mother and overweight child is increasing (O/O) and underweight mothers with underweight children (U/U) continues. Using the UNICEF conceptual framework of malnutrition, the purpose of this paper is to examine socio-economic, demographic, and nutrition-related predictors of U/U, O/U and O/O households in India compared to the dyad of normal weight mother with normal weight child (N/N). The data are from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) India 2005-06. The households are grouped into four categories (U/U, O/U, O/O, and N/N). Multinomial logistic regression analysis is used to analyze the effects of household level variables on the dual burden of malnutrition in India. As would be expected, food quality and food security are important predictors. Additionally, the results indicate that income and other household characteristics have complex relationships in predicting various mother-child dyad nutritional statuses.