Exploring the macroeconomic and socioeconomic determinants of simultaneous over and undernutrition in Asia: An analysis of stunted child - overweight mother households

Many low and middle-income countries in Asia experience greater food availability as their economies grow, potentially solving previous problems of undernutrition. However, economic growth may not sufficiently reduce undernutrition and instead increase over nutrition, creating a double burden of malnutrition. In this paper we investigate one of the most prevalent and seemingly paradoxical manifestations of the double burden, a stunted child and an overweight mother (SCOM) living in the same household. We use household-level data from 11 Asian countries from 2005 to 2018, as well as macroeconomic data on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the GDP growth of these countries to estimate which household-level and macroeconomic factors predict SCOM. We also determine the relative predictive power of our variables for SCOM and investigate if predictors of SCOM also predict other forms of malnutrition. We find that the predictive power of household-level factors for SCOM is comparatively more important than that of macroeconomic variables. Additionally, we explore the effect of including population subgroup-level trends in maternal overweight and child stunting on the predictive power of our macro-level and household-level variables. The increasing prevalence of SCOM is driven by a rise in maternal overweight, coupled with stagnant rates of child stunting, but remains a unique phenomenon that differs from other indicators of malnutrition. This supports explanations that suggest increasing consumption of high-energy but low-nutrient foods is the underlying cause of SCOM, leading to weight gain in adults and stunting in under-five children.