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Effect of Dietary Diversity on 6 to 23 Months Child Malnutrition through the Mediating Effects of Child Morbidity: Based on Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2019

Injamul Methun, Tejgaon College
M Sheikh Giash Uddin, Jagannath University
Md. Ismail Hossain Riday, Jagannath University
Md. Mahabub Alam, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and Informatics Division Ministry of Planning
Sutopa Roy, Department of Statistics, Jagannath University

This study aims to find out the effect of minimum acceptable diet on child underweight through the mediating effect of child morbidity. Bangladesh MICS, 2019 survey data was used in this study. The effect of underweight and other socio-demographic variables on child underweight generalized structural equation model was fitted. Causal mediation analysis was done to find the mediating effect of child morbidity on the underweight. Among the total 6991 children aged 6-23 months, almost three-fourth (72.7%) had not minimum acceptable diet, and 20.3% were underweight. The percentage of children who had diarrhea and cough was 10.7% and 26.9%, respectively. The result showed minimum acceptable diet had direct (ß = - 0.03, P < 0.05) and indirect (ß = - 0.03, P < 0.05) through the child morbidity on child underweight (ß = - 0.03, P < 0.05). The result also revealed that the mother’s education, ANC, and cesarean-section delivery negatively affected the underweight. The result also revealed that there is a high risk of having underweight children among Muslim and male children. The causal mediation analysis revealed that only a tiny fraction of the indirect effect of minimum accept diet on underweight was explained by the child morbidity.

Keywords: Children and youth, Structural equation modelling, Health and morbidity

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P10.