Dietary diversity and its relationship with nutritional adequacy in 24 to 59 months old children in Iran: study protocol

BACKGROUND: Nutritional inadequacy, especially micronutrients, is still a serious concern among children in developing countries. Dietary diversity score (DDS) has been recommended as a proxy for nutritional adequacy. The present study aims to develop a questionnaire to assess the dietary diversity among 24–59 months children in Iran; also, the validity of the dietary diversity score as an indicator of nutritional status among the children will be assessed. METHODS: In order to design the questionnaire, the Food and Agriculture Organization Guideline for measuring individual dietary diversity will be applied. According to the guideline, foods are categorized into nine groups, then dietary diversity score will be calculated by summing the number of food groups. In order to evaluate the efficacy of this questionnaire in predicting the nutritional status of the children, the relationship between dietary diversity score calculated by the questionnaire with nutritional adequacy, serum retinol and anthropometric indicators will be compared. DISCUSSION: DDS can be a valuable indicator for predicting the adequacy of macronutrients and micronutrients specially in children. It is also significantly related to the mean probability of adequacy (MPA).