In a recent study, researchers reviewed demographic and health surveys between 2006–2020 at the global scale, looking for clear trends of zero fruit/vegetable consumption in infants. They found that almost 46% of the world follows the practice of zero fruit/vegetable consumption. Primarily, socioeconomic conditions and the mothers' employment status are significant predictors.
Six months after birth, human infants experience rapid growth and development. These are processes for which breastmilk alone is insufficient. Identifying that a diverse diet containing fruits and vegetables was essential, the United Nations Children's Fund (WHO-UNICEF) introduced zero vegetable or fruit consumption (ZVF) as a novel metric to evaluate infant and young child feeding (IYCF).
Introduced in 2021, the ZVF metric tests the proportion of children between the ages of 6-23 months who have not consumed any vegetables or fruits in the 24 hours preceding the query.
Globally, 45.7% of all children aged 6-23 months were found to have not consumed fruits and vegetables the preceding day. These values corroborated previous estimates and showed that West and Central Africa nations were the worst affected (56.1%). In comparison, Latin America and the Caribbean showed the best food practices, with ZVF consumption found in only 34.5% of children.
Source: news-medical.net
Photo source: Dreamstime.com