Dietary Diversity Score: A Measure of Nutritional Adequacy or an Indicator of Healthy Diet?

At the time when the lack of indicators seemed to constrain appropriate child feeding in developing countries, dietary diversity score (DDS) emerged as a measure of nutritional adequacy that could close the gap. DDS refers to the number of food groups consumed in a given time, often in 24 hrs. Commonly, a diet of at least 4 DDS was valid as nutritionally adequate. Though validations with the test of correlation between DDS and nutrient adequacy ratio (NAR) or mean nutrient adequacy ratio (MAR) have been highly significant (p<0.001), the correlation coefficients in most cases were less than 0.5 indicating problems of deficiency. MAR cannot prove itself a true reference of nutrients adequacy because it stands for the mean ratio of all nutrients to recommended allowance of the nutrients, masking the real status of each nutrient. The differences in gender, age and physiology of the participants in the validation of DDS, the variability of nutrient density within food groups, and the neglect of food intake further complicate the accuracy of DDS as a measure of nutrient adequacy. It is true that dietary diversity increases the potential for the provision of different nutrients and healthy phytochemicals that satisfy the requirement for normal growth and health. It also contributes to the ecosystem services by its involvement in primary production, nutrient cycle, food provision and environmental regulation. These favorable characters and the contrasting problems of standardizing DDS as a measure of nutritional adequacy, call for a change that suggest to better use DDS as an indicator of healthy diet

Arbuscular Mycorrhizas: Producing and Applying Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Inoculum

This publication addresses common questions about arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi and provides information that will enable interested individuals to produce and then evaluate AMF inocula with minimal external assistance

Food energy cost of overweight and obesity: a model to estimate the amount of food expended for excess body weight in a community

Over-consumption of food energy entails body fat accumulation, overweight, obesity and increased risks of diseases. It is also indirectly associated with poor body condition followed by forced rest periods and limitations of activities and tasks. At community or global level, excess body weight could indirectly influence the environment by advancing food demand and the pressure on food production resources. The extent to which the environment is impacted can be estimated based on the level of excess food produced and consumed at community level. In order to determine the extra food energy required to produce and maintain excess weight, two mathematical models are designed. The concept of food energy partition, a method of determining excess weight in gender and age classes plus some information on the conversion efficiency of food energy to body fat, energy value of body fat, energy value of food, and total energy expenditure for excess weight are considered and applied in order to achieve the desired goal. Together with the affected size of a population, it was possible to estimate the additional cost of food energy for overweight and obesity. As an example, average extra global food energy expended for the excess weight in the existing population is calculated as 659.495 million Gcal (Gcal = 1000Mcal) or 261.681 million tons and that for the maintenance of excess body weight or the total energy expenditure for excess bodyweight, as 239.8 million Gcal/year or 95.07 million tons per year. Assuming that the global average annual food production per hectare is 2.64 tons, 95.07 million hectare land is required for the production of food to meet the cost for excess body weight, and 36.43 million hectare per year to meet the cost of the maintenance of the excess body weight. These values form the basis for the estimation of the extra load on environmental resources and impacts in terms of soil, water- and atmosphere degradation and the indirect influence on health and wellbeing. Considering the wide range of variability in body structure and food type and quality in the world, which could inflict relatively higher analytical error, the model is best fit to small communities with minor inherent and treatment differences

Guide to chicken health and management in Ethiopia: For farmers and development agents

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, United KingdomDepartment for International Development, United Kingdo