Do adolescents eat healthy: Diet quality dimensions and fish consumption in low-income urban Bangladesh

Samenvatting

Adolescence (age 10–19 years) is a critical stage of life to establish lifelong healthy dietary habits. In low- and middle-income countries like Bangladesh, particularly in urban areas, adolescents often consume suboptimal diets that are high in energy-dense but nutrient-poor unhealthy foods while lacking adequate diversity and quantity of healthy nutritious foods. Fish, an integral part of Bangladeshi diets. Diet quality is multi-dimensional and is driven by various factors within the broader food system. However, little is known about the diet quality, fish intake and the food system drivers of adolescents from urban low-income groups.

Therefore, we studied the quality of the diets of adolescents from low-wealth neighborhoods in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, and explored the determinants of diet quality, with a specific focus on fish consumption.