Adolescents are among the age groups most vulnerable to malnutrition and their situation requires priority attention. However, information on adolescent nutrition in Bangladesh is limited.
... See More + Using data from the Food Security and Nutrition Surveillance Project (FSNSP), we examined the nutritional situation of adolescent girls including regional and urban-rural patterns in undernutrition and overnutrition, dietary diversity, household food security, and as well as their growth dynamics. Our analysis focused on data collected from 2012 to 2014. The total sample size was 15,740 adolescent girls aged 10–19 years, of which one third were early adolescents aged 10–14 years, and one-tenth lived in urban areas. The authors found that among young adolescent girls, the proportion of moderate to severe thinness declined from 35 percent to 28 percent between 2012 and 2014, and rates of overweight and obesity were consistently low. For older adolescent girls (ages 15-19), the proportion of moderate to severe thinness remained low, while rates of overweight and obesity increased from 13 percent to 23 percent between 2012 and 2014. Overall, 17 percent of younger adolescent girls were stunted in 2012, decreasing to 11 percent in 2014. Study findings also highlighted substantial regional variations in both age groups. Of concern was a decrease in dietary diversity. The proportion of younger adolescent girls falling into the poor dietary diversity group increased from 54 percent in 2012 to 60 percent in 2014, and for older adolescent girls, a similar pattern was evident, with rates increasing from 53 percent to 64 percent. The analysis of growth dynamics indicated substantial deficits relative to healthy norms in the younger adolescent period. Study findings emphasize the importance of leveraging critical developmental entry points through high impact adolescent nutrition interventions. These investments will help ensure a future healthy work force, and a healthy next generation of children in Bangladesh.
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On March 8, 2018, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University (JPGSPH) and Shornokishoree Network Foundation (SKNF) with the support from the World Bank (WB) and UNICEF-Bangladesh hosted a round table discussion entitled ‘‘Promoting Adolescent Nutrition in Bangladesh’’ at Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) auditorium in Dhaka.
... See More + The objectives of this workshop were: a) to report the substantial variation in adolescent malnutrition across the country; b) to identify the best ways to reach adolescent girls and boys; c) to explore the role of private sector in addressing the challenge of adolescent nutrition; and d) to recognize the implications of not acting on this problem. Participants brought a rich diversity of insights and experiences to the workshop, which were strengthened by the participation of high-profile stakeholders from Government and several Non-government organizations (NGOs).
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Adolescence is the second most crucial period of a child’s life in terms of physical growth and cognitive development. It is also a last opportunity to reverse growth faltering experienced during childhood.
... See More + In Bangladesh, good health and nutrition during this period is key to breaking the inter-generational cycle of undernutrition and ensuring later adult health and productivity.
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This paper finds that informal workers are more likely to have inferior work conditions, but do not necessarily report worse subjective well-being.
... See More + Starting with lower wages, but also with less regularity of hours and paid vacation, informal workers have higher incidence of envelope payments than formal workers but not of hazardous or unstable jobs. After controlling for work conditions, informal workers do not have statistically significantly lower job satisfaction and under no specification are informal workers more likely to self-assess worse health than formal workers. Finally, there is some association between informal employment and household poverty and life satisfaction, but it is not robust to changes in econometric specification or sample composition. The authors conclude that the evidence indicates that informal employment in the Russian Federation is mostly a problem of labor productivity and the design of the social protection system, but worsening wages and some association between informality and household poverty indicate that informality may also be a social equity problem.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8989 AUG 20, 2019
