Dietary Diversity as a Key for Nutritious Diet

Abstract

Experts have suggested several community-based approaches to achieve a balanced diet, such as biofortification, food supplementation, and dietary diversification. Among them, dietary diversification or dietary diversity is an easy and effective measure. The main objective of this study is to demonstrate the utility of diet diversity by reviewing studies that aim to improve the quality of food through dietary diversity and to investigate the relationship between the dietary diversity index and nutrient adequacy. Research papers published in the last 10 years have been included in this study, sourced from various electronic data hubs. The collected papers were analyzed using the traditional review method. This study shows a significant difference in the dietary diversity index in the intervention groups compared to the control groups. Dietary diversity has been shown to have a linear relationship with the adequacy of micronutrients, while the coefficient correlated with macronutrients was found to be neutral. The reviewed research articles suggest an in-depth study at the local level for the validation of dietary diversity measurement methods and index standardization.