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Difference in the Patterns of Food Consumption of Rural Households in Bangladesh

Mahbub Hossain
Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Food consumption pattern hints the proportion of various foods that households consume to meet their nutritional requirements, which is crucial to know from the policy perspective. While several studies have documented a strong link between household dietary diversity and nutritional status of household members, especially of children; the evidence that whether or not the proportions of households’ intake of nutrients from different foods differ across the income levels is almost nonexistent. The present study fills in this void in the literature by generating evidence on variations in the consumption pattern with income in the context of a low middle-income country. By using data from a national level rural households survey, this paper finds that food consumption pattern significantly differs across income classes and notably with a rise in income households tend to substitute less nutritious food with more nutritious food. However it is found that carbohydrates dominate the rural households’ diets with few proteins, vitamins, and minerals. Hence as far as food security is concerned, policymakers need to emphasise on policies that would promote households’ behavioural change in respect of food choices. Less income inequality in the economy may also be conducive to improve national food security.

Keywords: Food consumption pattern, Rural households, Bangladesh

Location: Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Trend analysis

Objectives:

There is a dearth of evidence on whether rural Bangladeshi households' food consumption patterns vary because of income. In order to fill in such void in the literature, this study aims to investigate the above research question in the context of rural Bangladesh.

Methodology:

The data for this study comes from the Bangladesh Integrated Households Survey (BIHS) 2012. This survey—representative of all administrative divisions of Bangladesh—has interviewed 6,503 rural households across Bangladesh. The BIHS is a very rich dataset from the standpoint of food consumption data, which has been conducted in periods that do not coincide with the country’s any lean seasons. The BIHS contains data on the quantity of various food consumed by households in a normal day, which gives information on the total quantity of food a household consumes. Dividing these quantities by the household size gives the per capita availability of food. Since food wise disaggregated data are available in the BIHS, it becomes possible to compute the share of various food groups on per capita food availability. The broad categories of food considered in this study include: (i) cereals, (ii) pulses, (iii) vegetables, (iv) fish, (v) meat, (vi) oils or fats, and (vii) fruits. The share of the above food groups gives the food consumption pattern of the sample households. Since one of the objectives of this study is to investigate whether the households have similar food consumption pattern across income classes, the sample is split into four quartiles on the basis of per capita monthly expenditures. Monthly expenditure is considered here as a proxy of income because literature suggests expenditure data gives a better reflection of households’ permanent income. It may be noteworthy that the bottom quartile represents the poorest; while the richest belong to the top quartile. The food consumption pattern is obtained for each quartile using respective households’ data. In order to explore whether the households consume various food in the same proportion, analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique is used in this study. The method is appropriate because the objective here is to compare the mean of the share of food groups across households’ level of income. The null hypothesis is that the mean share of food group does not differ across income classes; while the alternative hypothesis is the share does vary.

Source of Information: J Bangladesh Agril Univ 17(2): 232–235, 2019 ISSN 1810-3030 (Print) 2408-8684 (Online)

Article Link (Online Journal): https://doi.org/10.3329/jbau.v17i2.41987

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Based on the empirical findings of the study, it becomes evident that rural households’ food consumption pattern lacks in diversity. Moreover rural households’ diets are over-dependent on low nutritious carbohydrate-rich foods. Cereals, as expected, constitute the lion share of rural households’ daily diets in rural Bangladesh. Despite whatever decrease in the share of cereals is found across income classes; cereals still hold the major share in rural households’ diets. This implies that households tend to rely on excessive carbohydrate consumption for attaining their required calories. The policy concern is that merely cereals can hardly fulfill the requirements of other nutrients such as proteins, vitamins, and minerals. A further concern stemming from the over-dependence on cereals is that any rise in the price of cereals would affect almost all the rural households’ food security in Bangladesh; in particular, the poorest would be the hardest-hit. The extent of such an impact would spread over all rural households because it is the staple food of all. The policy implication of this would be that the national planners who are working to improve the food security should emphasis policies towards diversifying food consumption pattern. Policymakers should also bear in mind that it would be imperative to keep the price of nutrient-rich foods within the purchasing capacity of the rural people. Since inequality in nutrient-rich food consumption is prominent in respect of income, another policy implication of the study would be that the national planners can draw policy lessons from this study. Policymakers need to recognize the variations in food consumption pattern while they design any intervention for improving food and nutritional security of the people in rural areas. Unless the planners notice that there is a significant variation in food consumption pattern across income level, a single intervention would not bring about a desirable effect. As far as the variation in consumption pattern is concerned, there need to be tailored interventions suitable to different group context. In addition, emphasis needs to be given in place for designing nutritional intervention for the poorest of the rural region. Concerned policymakers also need to promote the equitable distribution of income in the economy otherwise a particular segment of the population would always be deprived with respect to food and nutrition. Finally the study reaffirms that the population’s consumption behaviour including choice of foods and distribution are most important for the overall food security situation (Murshid et al., 2008).

Knowledge Management: Journal