Diet diversity, malnutrition and health: Evidence from Kenya

Abstract

We investigate the effects of diet diversity on health outcomes indicated by the body-mass index (BMI) of Kenyan women in their reproductive age (15–49 years). We estimate the demand for diet diversity (which is a proxy for diet quality) and analyse its relationship with BMI by allowing the effect of diet diversity to vary along the conditional BMI distribution. Results show that diet diversity is associated with a beneficial effect on the lower and upper tails of the BMI distribution, that is, dietary diversity improves BMI for underweight individuals while, at the same time, it reduces BMI for overweight/obese individuals. Specifically, doubling the diet diversity is associated with a 14.7% increase in BMI for underweight women and a 7.0% reduction in BMI of obese women. These results support the hypothesis that diet diversity is associated with optimal BMI and, thus, better health, contributing to the policy discourse concerning the double burden of malnutrition in developing countries.