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Inadequate feeding practices are a significant reason for the onset of malnutrition in young children, and their consequences are one of the major obstacles to sustainable socioeconomic development and poverty reduction. Dietary diversity is one of the useful indicators to assess the nutrient adequacy and can examine how different food groups contribute to the nutrient adequacy of the diet in a specific area. Minimum dietary diversity is the intake of at least four food types from the seven categories. Secondary data analysis of Ethiopian Demographic health survey of 2016 was conducted to explore significant predictors that make children inappropriate to meet minimum dietary diversity. There were 2972 weighted samples, and we have used “SVY” command by STATA 14.0 during data analysis to run the complex survey data. This study has identified the possible factors of inadequate minimum dietary diversity of children. The proportion of inadequate minimum dietary diversity in Ethiopia was found 85.1%. Frequency of reading newspaper or magazine, frequency of listening to radio, father’s educational level and household wealth index were found significant predictors to determine the minimum dietary diversity of children. Dairy products and grain, roots and tubers account more than half of consumed foods. Among breastfed children who attained minimum dietary diversity, majority of them were in the age group of 6–11 months. Minimum dietary diversity is still low in Ethiopia, and most of mothers feed their child the most and easy accessible food rather than of diverse food. In the way of addressing the Sustainable Development Goal, Ethiopia requires substantial improvement in complementary feeding practices. Appropriate infant and young child feeding messages should to be developed and delivered through mass media.
Eshete et al. (Wed,) studied this question.