Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program

India has the world’s highest number of undernourished children and the largest school feeding program, the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme. As school feeding programs target children outside the highest-return “first 1000-days” window, they have not been included in the global agenda to address stunting....

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Autores principales: Chakrabarti, Suman, Scott, Samuel P., Alderman, Harold, Menon, Purnima, Gilligan, Daniel O.
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/142809
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author Chakrabarti, Suman
Scott, Samuel P.
Alderman, Harold
Menon, Purnima
Gilligan, Daniel O.
author_browse Alderman, Harold
Chakrabarti, Suman
Gilligan, Daniel O.
Menon, Purnima
Scott, Samuel P.
author_facet Chakrabarti, Suman
Scott, Samuel P.
Alderman, Harold
Menon, Purnima
Gilligan, Daniel O.
author_sort Chakrabarti, Suman
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description India has the world’s highest number of undernourished children and the largest school feeding program, the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme. As school feeding programs target children outside the highest-return “first 1000-days” window, they have not been included in the global agenda to address stunting. School meals benefit education and nutrition in participants, but no studies have examined whether benefits carry over to their children. Using nationally representative data on mothers and their children spanning 1993 to 2016, we assess whether MDM supports intergenerational improvements in child linear growth. Here we report that height-for-age z-score (HAZ) among children born to mothers with full MDM exposure was greater (+0.40 SD) than that in children born to non-exposed mothers. Associations were stronger in low socioeconomic strata and likely work through women’s education, fertility, and health service utilization. MDM was associated with 13–32% of the HAZ improvement in India from 2006 to 2016.
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spelling CGSpace1428092025-12-09T21:37:13Z Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program Chakrabarti, Suman Scott, Samuel P. Alderman, Harold Menon, Purnima Gilligan, Daniel O. child nutrition school feeding stunting schoolchildren nutrition children India has the world’s highest number of undernourished children and the largest school feeding program, the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme. As school feeding programs target children outside the highest-return “first 1000-days” window, they have not been included in the global agenda to address stunting. School meals benefit education and nutrition in participants, but no studies have examined whether benefits carry over to their children. Using nationally representative data on mothers and their children spanning 1993 to 2016, we assess whether MDM supports intergenerational improvements in child linear growth. Here we report that height-for-age z-score (HAZ) among children born to mothers with full MDM exposure was greater (+0.40 SD) than that in children born to non-exposed mothers. Associations were stronger in low socioeconomic strata and likely work through women’s education, fertility, and health service utilization. MDM was associated with 13–32% of the HAZ improvement in India from 2006 to 2016. 2021-07-12 2024-05-22T12:11:06Z 2024-05-22T12:11:06Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/142809 en Open Access Nature Publishing Group Chakrabarti, Suman; Scott, Samuel; Alderman, Harold; Menon, Purnima; and Gilligan, Daniel O. 2021. Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program. Nature Communications 12: 4248. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24433-w
spellingShingle child nutrition
school feeding
stunting
schoolchildren
nutrition
children
Chakrabarti, Suman
Scott, Samuel P.
Alderman, Harold
Menon, Purnima
Gilligan, Daniel O.
Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program
title Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program
title_full Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program
title_fullStr Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program
title_full_unstemmed Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program
title_short Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program
title_sort intergenerational nutrition benefits of india s national school feeding program
topic child nutrition
school feeding
stunting
schoolchildren
nutrition
children
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/142809
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