Dataset Information

Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India's national school feeding program.

ABSTRACT: 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.

SUBMITTER: Chakrabarti S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8275765 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India's national school feeding program.

Chakrabarti Suman S Scott Samuel P SP Alderman Harold H Menon Purnima P Gilligan Daniel O DO

Nature communications 20210712 1

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 chi ...[more]

PMID: 34253719

Similar Datasets

Project description:BACKGROUND:The Nepal School Meals Program reached 600,000 schoolchildren in basic education in 2017 and plays a key role in the government's strategy to increase children's academic and nutritional outcomes. A large part of the program is implemented through cash transfers with schools responsible for the school meal delivery. Home-grown school feeding, an approach in which local communities are given greater control over the school meals program and part of the food is sourced locally, may strengthen local ownership and improve meal quality, but there is a lack of evidence for impact. METHODS:This study piloted home-grown school feeding in 30 schools reaching nearly 4000 children in Sindhupalchok and Bardiya districts in Nepal with the aim to assess operations and outcomes in comparison to the regular cash-based school meals program. The study used a one-time post evaluation with a mixed methods approach. Qualitative data were collected through 12 focus group discussions and 28 key informant interviews with government and school staff, parents, cooks, cooperative members, World Food Programme representatives and other stakeholders involved in the pilot program. The quantitative part applied a quasi-experimental design and used cross-sectional data collected from 1512 children in 30 pilot and 30 control schools. RESULTS:The quantitative data indicated that children in the pilot schools had a significantly higher provision of midday school meals (+ 19%; p < 0.01) and a higher school meal quality in terms of dietary diversity (+ 44%; p < 0.01) and nutritional content (e.g. a 21%-points higher consumption of vitamin A-rich fruit and vegetables; p < 0.01). The qualitative data identified key drivers of these positive outcomes as the use of standard meal options, capacity building of local stakeholders, strengthened community ownership and accountability mechanisms, and local food supply chains. Maintaining the observed gains would require a 20-33% increase in the current budget per school meal in addition to the cost of capacity building. CONCLUSIONS:This study for Nepal shows that home-grown school feeding strengthened operations of the school meals program and led to a significantly higher meal provision and quality of school meals.

Project description:BackgroundPre-weaning milk replacer (MR) feeding program is a key factor affecting the health and welfare of lambs during their weaning. Weaning stress is well known as an inducement that negatively impacts the immune system of young ruminants, whose physiological and immune state is closely linked to the community of microbiota in their intestines. This study had two objectives: 1) To evaluate the innate immune response to weaning stress at both the physiological and molecular level; 2) To investigate changes to the jejunal chyme and mucosal adhesive microbiota between the control and high plane of MR groups.ResultsIn this experiment, the plasma concentrations of cortisol, norepinephrine (NE) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) were higher in the C than the H group (P < 0.05), as was the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNFα and CXCL8 (P < 0.05) in plasma. In jejunal tissue, the expression of TLR4 and TNFα were also higher in the C group (P < 0.01); histopathology showed the H group had lower lymphocyte infiltration. In the C group, however, major pathological changes were associated with extensive infiltration of lymphocytes, eosinophils, and neutrophils. Principal component analysis indicated the lamb immune response was influenced by weaning stress and modulated by the MR treatments. 16S-rRNA sequencing was used to evaluate jejunal mucosa and chyme bacterial diversity and composition. The C group's chyme had a greater alpha index (ACE: P = 0.095; Chao1: P = 0.085) than H group. In jejunal mucosa, the relative abundance of Plesiomonas was 4-fold higher (P = 0.017) in the C than the H group.ConclusionsThis study's results revealed that weaning stress induced alterations to the lambs' immune system that lasted beyond the 21 d measured, and that a long-term inflammatory response effect was evidenced by changes in their hematological and expressed pro-inflammatory cytokines. Pre-weaning with a differing MR allowance resulted in complicated biological responses and compositional changes to the lambs' jejunal microbiota. Clearly, an intensive MR feeding program induced a milder immunity response and lower relative abundance of pathogenic bacteria when compared with the traditional feeding program.

Dataset Information

Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India's national school feeding program.

Publications

Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India's national school feeding program.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets