Dietary diversity

Posters

Image of the poster - see PDF for details

In Sierra Leone, SPRING tested integrated social and behavior change (SBC) approaches that can improve nutrition-related household practices and influence agriculture value chains. The goal...

Videos

Image taken from the video of two animated children eating healthy and unhealthy meals.

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic works with media partners and the Ministry of Health to develop and share videos on key nutrition messages across the country. This animated video contains key...

Image of an animated clock with different foods circling around it.

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic works with media partners and the Ministry of Health to develop and share videos on key nutrition messages across the country. This animated video contains key...

children sit on the floor and look at sheets of paper with images of fruits and vegetables on them

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic works with media partners to develop and share videos on key nutrition messages across the country. This live action video shares the importance of a diverse diet to...

Keywords: Dietary diversity
Location: Kyrgyz Republic
A woman hands a young girl a plate of food.

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic works with media partners to develop and share videos on key nutrition messages across the country. This live action video shares the importance of a diverse diet to...

Keywords: Dietary diversity
Location: Kyrgyz Republic
a basket of local foods including several root vegetables, tomatoes, and cabbage

In the village of Naki Karfi, as Mr. Adamou comes back from the market, he runs into Lawali, and they talk about the consumption of locally-made nutritious foods. After the discussions, the...

Four children sit outside and happily eat bananas

On her way back from the field, Delphine bumps into her friend Brigitte who asks why she has picked so many vegetables. Delphine tells her that it is not for a party, but instead, the...

Community Video: Alimentation Complémentaire

A mother in Senegal prepares a diverse, nutrient-rich meal and demonstrates that it is appropriate for complementary feeding to a child between 6-23 months of age. As she feeds the child,...

Woman leading a Farmer Nutrition School in Bangladesh

SPRING pioneered the community-based farmer nutrition schools (FNS) approach to promote the production of nutrient-dense vegetables, fruits, and animal source foods at the household level...

News

Photo of men and women reaching out and cutting a blue ceremonial ribbon.

SPRING's partnerships with local NGOs to promote UNICEF's IYCF Package, paired with evidence of its effectiveness, spurs government uptake beyond the life of the project

Roundtable participants stand in a line and smile at the camera

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic hosted a round table event to disseminate findings from a series of four surveys, including gains in nutrition outcome indicators.

A man and woman stand in front of the camera. The woman looks ahead, the man looks and smiles at their baby in his arms

The group visited one of SPRING’s partner radio stations, micro-gardens, and chicken coops, and observed a community video dissemination.

A woman holding her baby stands in a dusty field.

SPRING/Ghana is maximizing chances for achieving more results from its multi-sectoral nutrition programs by prioritizing implementation in LEAP 1,000 communities.

OFSP_MTMSG members in Tatale District display their Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP) yields

SPRING/Ghana is promoting the cultivation and consumption of OFSP and fortified maize as a way of improving vitamin A consumption among 1,000 day households.

Groundnut shellers

SPRING is distributing nut shellers to communities in Northern Ghana as a demonstration of their ability to save labor for female groundnut and shea nut farmers.

Nora Madrigal (USAID), Aisha Zhorobekova (USAID), Il Hyong Won (Good Neighbors)

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic hosted an event for health officials in Bishkek to discuss nutrition-sensitive agriculture and launch a new reference book on long-term food storage and preservation.

Galleries

The video development team watches as a neighbor explains benefits of poultry raising for the family, “Small scale poultry farming at home can be beneficial for you and it can meet your short term financial needs.” Photo credit: Sarah Hogan, 2017

Under the UPAVAN project, SPRING and Digital Green create community videos promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture practices in Odisha, India. This community video shows neighbors...

Members of one of SPRING’s partner women’s groups pose for a photo outside of their community garden.

A USAID and SPRING team observed the results of SPRING’s partnership approach at the community level.

Ziba Dokurugu, SPRING Agriculture Advisor, explaining our aflatoxin management work with Farmer Field Schools to visitors at the agriculture table at the event

SPRING/Ghana held a learning and sharing event to reflect on implementation successes and recommendations.

School pupils reciting a poem on the effects of malnutrition on children.

SPRING/Ghana participated in an event launching our new nut roasting equipment as part of a public-private partnership with USAID, Hershey, and Project Peanut Butter.

Participants and trainers pose for a group photo.

From May 4-8, 2017, SPRING/Senegal trained six partner networks in Senegal on the technical and business elements of operating machinery that can be used to lower the burden of post-harvest...

Groundnut shellers in the country office ready to be delivered to the districts.

SPRING is distributing a limited number of nut shellers to communities in Northern Ghana as a demonstration of their ability to save labor for female groundnut and shea nut farmers.

A participant looks at a copy of the new publication for home based storage and preservation of nutritious foods in the Kyrgyz Republic.

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic hosted an event for health officials in Bishkek to discuss nutrition-sensitive agriculture and launch a new reference book on long-term food storage and preservation.

Briefs

A grandmother helps her young granddaughter eat her food with a spoon.

During 2014–2017, SPRING undertook four surveys in the target areas to gain knowledge on the current status of a range of indicators related to the nutrition practices among women and...

Location: Kyrgyz Republic
Two people standing by a fish pool

In 2016, SPRING conducted a number of assessments to inform behavior change strategies in Tonkolili district in support of improvements to child nutrition in the first 1,000 days.

Location: Sierra Leone

Success Stories

A woman picks okra in her field.

Identifying a need for better hygiene in Yiziidug, in 2016, SPRING introduced community-led total sanitation (CLTS) to Yiziidug.

Job Aids and Tools

Two-year anemia calendar

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic has designed a two-year calendar that promotes nutrition and emphasizes anemia prevention.

Activities

This activity's objective was to test this indicator to measure feeding styles in the developing country context of Niger, and to provide learning to determine if this indicator could be...

Pages

Resource Review Summaries

Postharvest loss exacerbates the food insecurity and welfare loss of farming households in developing countries. This paper analyzes the impact of improved storage technologies on food and...

The ambitions contained in the Malabo Declaration, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and global development goals recognize the size and complexity of the nutrition challenges ahead. The...

How are agriculture biodiversity, diet quality, and anthropometric outcomes linked in low- and middle-income countries? This comprehensive review of 5 databases using qualitative analysis...

This guide reports on the learning that has emerged from the Transform Nutrition consortium's research examining the potential of the social protection and agriculture sectors in Bangladesh...

This technical brief provides an overview of community SBCC and triggering on positive nutrition and hygiene behaviours. It summarises some key insights and findings from Sustainable...

This seven-minute video shows Zambia's double malnutrition burden: stunting and overweight. A major cause is the limited diversity of Zambia’s food production and consumption: 94 percent of...

Keywords: Dietary diversity, Agriculture
Location: Zambia

In their latest report, Action Against Hunger promotes agroecology in food security and nutrition, rural and agriculture development, and climate change adaptation and mitigation to ensure...

The agriculture sector has a significant role to play in improving the nutritional status of women and children. Strengthening the link between agriculture and nutrition is critical to...

Most existing studies linking dietary diversity with farm production diversity build on household-level indicators calculated from seven day food consumption recalls. This study revisits...

Keywords: Agriculture, Dietary diversity
Location: Malawi

On January 30, 2016, Peru’s Ministry of Health came together with the Ministry of Education for an event on anemia prevention. The event targeted mothers who coordinate communal kitchens in...

This study assessed the diets and iron status of pre-school aged children in rural Ethiopia. The authors found that dietary diversity was quite low and that the children consumed primarily...

Keywords: Anemia, Dietary diversity
Location: Ethiopia

Despite strides made to reduce global hunger, vulnerable people on a global scale are still hungry. The availability of cheap cereal foods has coincided with a reduction in dietary...

The Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women (MDD-W) indicator acts as a tool for assessment, target-setting, and advocacy. MDD-W is a dichotomous indicator of whether or not women 15-49 years...

Monotonous diets fail to provide sufficient micronutrients. Consequently, dietary diversity is crucial for vulnerable groups, in particular women of reproductive age. This report reviews...

Some 2 billion people suffer from hidden hunger caused by infections and diets lacking in essential micronutrients, such as, vitamin A, iron, and zinc. This two page brief explores how...

This blog introduces the special issue of the Journal of Development Studies) on “Farm-Level Pathways to Improved Nutritional Status,” which features 8 studies exploring the linkage between...

The July 2014 Ag2Nut Community of Practice monthly call featured two presentations; one on the Ugandan Food Trade System and the other on a New Dietary Diversity Score. Terri Ballard, a...

Keywords: Dietary diversity
Location: Uganda

Do vegetable gardens have an impact on the health and well-being of People Living with HIV (PLHIV)? Between 2008 and 2011, a project in Zimbabwe led by Action Contre la Faim supported...

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Dietary diversity
Location: Zimbabwe

According to a UN special rapporteur, a loss of agrobiodiversity, accelerated soil erosion, and pollution of fresh water from the overuse of chemical fertilizers resulting from the green...

Drawing on household survey data from Nepal, this paper investigates the impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture and production diversity on dietary diversity and anthropometric...

There remains insufficient evidence to support well-defined, scalable agricultural biodiversity interventions that can be linked to improvements in nutrition outcomes. The book provides a...

Children living in areas of Africa with heavy tree cover tend to have more nutritious diets. Can boosting production of such energy-rich crops as rice, maize and wheat - at the expense of...

Keywords: Dietary diversity
Location: Africa