“We need to make good nutrition a habit—like combing one’s hair or having a bath,” quipped Dr Zelalem Taffesse, Chief of Hyderabad Field Office, UNICEF-India, speaking at a two-day workshop on “Defining and Designing behavioural solutions for improving complementary feeding”.
Around 25 representatives from UNICEF, district and state-level functionaries from Telangana State department of Women and Child Development, nutrition specialists and field researchers brainstormed on August 5 and 6 at University of Hyderabad (UoH), to arrive at strategies to promote complementary feeding practices for children aged 0-2 years. This is considered to be a crucial window of child development, when significant physical and cognitive growth takes place, and the introduction of nutritious foods as children transition from breast milk is key to promoting long-term health.
The workshop was part of an ongoing effort to build behavioural-insights driven interventions in this area, where discussions revolved around findings from field research in three focus districts of Telangana: Adilabad, Kamareddy, and Gadwal. These are districts with sub-par child development indicators, including significant levels of stunting and malnutrition in the 0-5 age group.
An outcome of the workshop is a set of preliminary prototypes that can be field tested, aimed at promoting the uptake/change of specific behaviours, including increased consumption of fruits and green leafy vegetables, appropriate initiation of complementary feeding at 6 months of an infant’s age, and avoiding recourse to easily available packaged foods such as sugary biscuits.
The Department of Communication has been engaged with the Field Office of UNICEF and the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC), Ashoka University, to develop and apply expertise in behavioural science to a range of social change issues, ranging from nutrition to education to routine immunization. The partnership is part of the newly established Behavioural Insights Unit within the Department of Communication that builds on the existing research expertise of the faculty in areas such as community media and social change communication, as well as growing doctoral student engagement in these areas.
The 2-day workshop was organized by Profs Vasuki Belavadi and Usha Raman, in collaboration with Dr Ravikanth, BI consultant, UNICEF, Mr. Aditya Lomas, CSBC-Ashoka University, and supported by Ms. Seema Kumar of the UNICEF Field Office in Hyderabad.