Taryn Smith, PhD

Associations between maternal capabilities for care and nurturing care behaviours among mother-child dyads in Malawi and South Africa Adequate nurturing care behaviours, including feeding practices, health-seeking and psychosocial stimulation, are crucial for the optimal health, growth and development of young children. However, sev...

Published in @plosglobalpublichealth.org we find several maternal capabilities for care are integral for the #NurturingCare of children & this varies by context. Interventions promoting nurturing care should aim to strengthen multiple maternal capabilities.
#ECD

journals.plos.org/globalpublic...

Nearly half of all interventions fail to increase fruit and vegetable intake. Here’s what the successful ones have in common.
www.sagepub.com/explore-our-...

#nutrition #health #foodsystems

We are SO excited about this supplement. Out now!

A bar chart showing the prevalence of anemia among high-risk groups in various income levels of countries for the year 2019. Anemia occurs when there is a deficiency of healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin. The chart is divided into four income categories: low-income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income, and high-income countries. Each category lists three groups: children, pregnant women, and women of reproductive age, with percentages representing the prevalence of anemia in each group. In low-income countries, the percentages are: - Children: 59% - Pregnant women: 42% - Women of reproductive age: 39% In lower-middle-income countries: - Children: 51% - Pregnant women: 46% - Women of reproductive age: 44% For upper-middle-income countries: - Children: 24% - Pregnant women: 25% - Women of reproductive age: 19% In high-income countries: - Children: 14% - Pregnant women: 18% - Women of reproductive age: 15% Data source: WHO via World Bank (2025)

In many countries, more than half of children and pregnant women are anemic

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Our supplement on “Interventions on fruit & vegetable intake in low, middle and high-income countries: a global perspective” is now available in @fnbjournal.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/toc/fnba/46/...

#nutrition #health #foodsystems
@ifpri.org

Check out the just-published entire set of papers of the Lancet Haematology Commission: shorturl.at/fgnrg

There is also a shnazzy infographic that summarizes the core paper, “Getting back on track to meet global anemia reduction targets: a Lancet Hematology Commission.” shorturl.at/kj7uu

Newly released estimates from @who.int @unicef.org & #WorldBank show faltering progress in ending childhood #malnutrition

Continued access to robust data like this ensures decision makers are held accountable to sustain & advance progress for millions of children data.unicef.org/resources/jme/

How many people faced hunger in 2024?

Latest data is available in #SOFI2025👇

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024: Addressing high food price inflation for food security and nutrition

📙Download YOUR copy of the In Brief report👉 doi.org/10.4060/cd60...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

What intervention strategies and approaches most effectively increase fruit and vegetable intakes in high-, middle- and low-income countries? Read our new scoping review in @fnbjournal.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

@ifpri.org
#nutrition #health #foodsystems

Evidence for micronutrients other than iron or anaemia was extremely limited.

Some recommendations for future research are highlighted in the paper.

#nutrition #childdevelopment #ECD #nurturingcare

There was very limited evidence from intervention studies and findings were inconsistent but suggest that nutritional interventions targeting undernourished caregivers could potentially have a positive impact on caregiving behaviours.

Suboptimal caregiver dietary intakes/quality, food insecurity, caregiver under- and overnutrition, anaemia and poor vitamin B6 status were quite consistently associated with less responsive caregiving and less engagement in early learning opportunities in observational studies.

Caregiver Nutrition and Nurturing Care: A Scoping Review Suboptimal caregiver diets, food insecurity, caregiver under- and overnutrition, anaemia and low vitamin B6 status were associated with less responsive caregiving and fewer opportunities for early le....

📢 Just published “Caregiver nutrition and nurturing care: a scoping review”

Does caregiver (maternal) nutrition influence responsive caregiving and engagement in early learning opportunities?

Short answer: yes, it likely does.

🔗 to paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Key findings 👇

This presents valuable opportunities to integrate maternal psychosocial wellbeing (including mental health & safety & security) and nurturing care (stimulation & responsive caregiving) into existing IYCF programmes that could benefit children’s dietary intakes, growth and development.

Mothers in 🇲🇼 who reported more depressive symptoms at 1 year postpartum were less likely to continue breastfeeding at around 1 year.

Social support was not associated with child feeding practices in either setting.

Mothers in 🇿🇦 who reported more psychosocial stimulation in the home (i.e. more books, toys, caregiver play activities with children) fed their children more diverse diets.

Psychosocial Predictors of Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices Among Mother‐Child Dyads in Malawi and South Africa We examined the associations between maternal psychosocial measures and infant and young child feeding practices in Malawi and South Africa. Mothers in South Africa recently exposed to intimate partn....

🔗 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Mothers in 🇿🇦 exposed to intimate partner violence in the past 12 months (i.e. the child’s lifetime) were less likely to feed their children the minimum dietary diversity and the minimum acceptable diet.

🔥JUST PUBLISHED
Few studies have explored maternal psychosocial predictors of complementary feeding & continued breastfeeding.
We report important findings related to intimate partner violence, stimulation in the home & mental health with potential policy & programme implications.
👇 A short 🧵 & 🔗

Thiamine Concentration in Human Milk Is Correlated With Maternal and Infant Thiamine Status: A Cross‐Sectional Analysis of the Lao Thiamine Study Thiamine status of breastfed infants < 6 months of age is correlated with human milk thiamine concentration, which in turn is strongly correlated with maternal thiamine status in northern Lao PDR. Im...

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 We looked at relationships between maternal thiamine status, breastmilk thiamine & infant thiamine status in Laos. Almost half of mothers had low breastmilk thiamine & this correlated with infant thiamine status. Strategies needed to improve maternal thiamine status.
#nutrition #NutSky

Every $1 spent on early childhood nutrition generates a $23 return.

By contrast, where there is malnutrition of any form, disease follows close behind:
-undernutrition is an underlying factor in almost half of deaths in children <5
-over 1 billion adults are living with obesity & diet-related NCDs

Minimum dietary diversity (MDD) is now an official SDG indicator. A big step forward in measuring and improving diet quality and reducing malnutrition globally.
#nutrition

Nutrition education was the most common intervention. Social protection, agricultural, environment restructuring and multicomponent interventions were limited.

The second paper in this supplement (forthcoming!) will evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions on F&V intakes. Stay tuned!

Only about one quarter of the interventions conducted follow-up assessments to determine if the impacts on F&V intake were sustained after the intervention ended. Future research should incorporate follow-up evaluations to better understand the long-term effects and sustainability on F&V intakes.

Most of the research targeted adults, school-age children and children <5 yrs. More research is needed among underrepresented population groups, particularly adolescents, pregnant and lactating women and older adults.

Most interventions were implemented in high-income countries. Data were especially limited from Southeast Asia, South America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. More research from LMICs and underrepresented regions could provide insights into how best to improve diets of people living in LMICs.

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 We undertook a mammoth review of interventions evaluating impacts on fruit & veg intake as part of @ifpri.org FRESH project. Our first paper looks at the evidence based & knowledge gaps.

🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

What did we find? A 🧵
#nutrition #health #foodsystems

I would highly recommend this @nihr.bsky.social grant writing masterclass 👇 I found it extremely helpful last year and useful for anyone putting in an NIHR grant (or others) in the near future.

The shocks to the global nutrition system should be a concern to nutrition scientists and nutrition advocates everywhere. Please read and share our perspective published open access in AJCN today. 👇

Re-thinking “non-response” to wasting treatment: Exploratory analysis from 14 studies Children who receive therapeutic feeding for wasting treatment but do not reach the anthropometric definitions of recovery (usually within 12–16 weeks) are categorised as ‘non-responders’ and consider...

I love browsing through recently published research on @plosglobalpublichealth.org - I learn something (or many somethings!) new every day.

Today we published this very cool study:

Re-thinking “non-response” to wasting treatment: Exploratory analysis from 14 studies

plos.io/4hyo9Jr

We found across all population & socioeconomic groups, diets lacked diversity, F&V intakes were low and under- & overnutrition are persisting challenges. Notably, there were limited studies evaluating interventions aimed at improving F&V intake in the Philippines which are urgently needed.
#NutSky