Nourishing the Future: Exploring the Factors Influencing Minimum Diet Diversity and Minimum Acceptable Diet among Indian Children Aged 6–23 Months

This paper aims to assess the prevalence of minimum diet diversity (MDD) and minimum acceptable diet (MAD) among Indian children aged 6–23 months. Additionally, the study seeks to understand the factors that contribute to children meeting the WHO-recommended criteria for MDD and MAD. We performed a quantitative analysis of food intake of children aged 6–23 months utilizing nationally representative cross-sectional data from the National Family Health Survey (2019–2021). We calculated the percentage of children within this age group who met the criteria for MDD and MAD. Furthermore, we estimated the predictors of MDD and MAD among these children using logistic regression analyses. We found that children aged 6–23 months in India had a remarkably low prevalence of both MDD and MAD, with rates of 25