Dietary Diversity of Young Children During CoVID-19 Outbreak: A Longitudinal Study

NCT ID: NCT04447209

Last Updated: 2025-02-18

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 350 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2020-06-06
• Study Completion Date: 2023-12-31

Brief Summary

The 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic has had far-reaching consequences beyond the spread of the disease. Quarantine measures during a public health pandemic can be particularly detrimental to urban poor families and affect the dietary diversity and food security. This can disproportionately affect young children aged 6 and below, and severely impact those <2 years. Sudden unemployment may result in an unexpected reduction in income that will place pressure on daily budgets for food. Children of families may not have access to foods of adequate diversity that will enable them to meet their macro and micronutrient requirements for growth and development, especially during the Movement Control Order (MCO). The study plans to monitor and evaluate dietary diversity in young children's food intake after the MCO and use the collected information to direct targeted food aid to address observed macro- and micronutrient deficiencies among the urban vulnerable group.

Detailed Description

Children are the future to our society. The first thousand days of life, starting from conception till one's second birthday is a critical period of cognitive and physical development. It is the most sensitive period where brain development is most receptive to positive nutrition. Any form of malnutrition, especially during this golden time frame, can lead to irreversible effects to growth, health, education and future career attainment to our potential leaders, which in turn can be a barrier to human development.

The CoVID outbreak is a unique period in recent human history where drastic public health measures such as MCO for an extended period of time has to be implemented nation-wide. These measures have untold severe consequences on the food security of the vulnerable urban group, in particular the young children whose brains require diverse micronutrients to support the rapid growth. These micronutrients can only be obtained from a daily diet that is equally diverse, especially from fresh vegetables and fruits which will be short in supplies. These perishable food items are not usually included in food aids, thus the child may have to subsist on staple-rich diet which are energy-dense but nutrient-poor. These dietary practices are associated with negative health outcomes. Thus by monitoring dietary diversity of the children, we hope to better inform food aid organisations to consider the inclusion of healthier food options to prevent micronutrient deficiencies.

Conditions

Dietary Diversity

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: PREVENTION
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Child Health Clinic (CHC)

Control arm - Receives dietary counseling but not given food basket.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Community Children

2-weekly food basket consisting of fresh or minimally processed foods in addition to dietary counseling

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

2-weekly Food baskets

Intervention Type: OTHER

2 weekly Food basket containing fresh foods or minimally processed foods.

Interventions

2-weekly Food baskets

2 weekly Food basket containing fresh foods or minimally processed foods.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• All well-children aged between 6 months and 6 years

Exclusion Criteria

• Children with chronic illnesses

• Minimum Eligible Age: 6 Months
• Maximum Eligible Age: 6 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

University of Malaya

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Lucy Lum Chai See

Professor

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Mohammad Y Jalaludin, MBBS MPaeds

Role: STUDY_DIRECTOR

University of Malaya Medical Center

Locations

University of Malaya Medical Center

Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Countries

Malaysia

References

World Health Organization. Indicators for assessing infant and young child feeding practices Part 1: Definitions. Geneva: WHO; 2008

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

Working Group on Infant and Young Child Feeding Indicators. Developing and validating simple indicators of dietary quality of infants and young children in developing countries: Additional analysis of 10 data sets. Report submitted to: the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA) Project/Academy for Educational Development (AED), July 2007

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

Kennedy GL, Pedro MR, Seghieri C, Nantel G, Brouwer I. Dietary diversity score is a useful indicator of micronutrient intake in non-breast-feeding Filipino children. J Nutr. 2007 Feb;137(2):472-7. doi: 10.1093/jn/137.2.472.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 17237329 (View on PubMed)

Cusick SE, Georgieff MK. The Role of Nutrition in Brain Development: The Golden Opportunity of the "First 1000 Days". J Pediatr. 2016 Aug;175:16-21. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2016.05.013. Epub 2016 Jun 3. No abstract available.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 27266965 (View on PubMed)

Steyn NP, Nel JH, Nantel G, Kennedy G, Labadarios D. Food variety and dietary diversity scores in children: are they good indicators of dietary adequacy? Public Health Nutr. 2006 Aug;9(5):644-50. doi: 10.1079/phn2005912.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 16923296 (View on PubMed)

World Health Organization, Geneva. 2017; Global Nutritional Monitoring Framework: Operational guidance for tracking progress in meeting targets for 2025

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

Other Identifiers

2020410-8500

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id