Dietary diversity is a good predictor of the micronutrient density of the diet of 6- to 23-month-old XXXX in Madagascar.

@entity1 @entity73086
This study was conducted in the context of a multicountry validation of indicators of diet quality and had the following objectives: 1) to determine how well dietary diversity scores (DDS) predict diet quality of @entity1 aged 6-23 mo in urban Madagascar; and 2) to assess whether the prediction was improved by changing the food groups included and by imposing a minimum amount restriction. Correlation and regression were used to describe the relationship between 4 diversity scores (2 based on 8 and 7 food groups, the latter excluding fats and oils, and 2 that imposed a 10-g minimum restriction on food groups) and the mean micronutrient density adequacy ( @entity73086 ) of the diet. @entity73086 , the dietary quality score used, was calculated as the mean individual micronutrient density adequacy for 9 or 10 "problem" nutrients (depending on age and breast-feeding status), each capped at 100%. We used sensitivity and specificity analysis to determine how well DDS predicted @entity73086 below or above selected cut-offs. All scores were positively correlated with @entity73086 . When the fats and oils group was omitted, correlations were 10-16% higher for breast-fed @entity1 and 19-28% higher for non-breast-fed @entity1 . Correlations were only slightly improved with the 10-g minimum. With the 7-food group score, a score of <or=2 best predicted low dietary quality ( @entity73086 <50%), with 64% sensitivity, 82% specificity, and 22% misclassification. Imposing a 10-g minimum increased misclassification (30%). These results support the growing evidence of the usefulness of dietary diversity to predict dietary quality, and among @entity1 and young @entity1 more specifically.
