Household Food Expenditure Patterns, Food Nutrient Consumption and Nutritional Vulnerability in Nigeria: Implications for Policy

Abstract

The study examined the patterns of food spending, food nutrient consumption, and nutrient deficiency profiles of households in Nigeria using a cross-sectional nationwide household survey data. Food nutrients were estimated from food expenditure data while the nutrient deficiency profiles were assessed adapting Foster et al. (1984) poverty index. The study established widespread nutritional deficiencies with low-income household cohorts bearing a greater burden of the deficiencies. Protein-protein deficiency appears to be much more prevalent in urban than rural areas. However, the deficiency of micro-nutrients seems to diffuse across urban-rural divides of the country with deficiency of calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin C appearing to be more pronounced in rural areas while phosphorous, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, and vitamin B3 deficiencies seem to be higher in urban settings. Pro-poor income growth strategies and sensitively guided urban-rural food and nutrition interventions are advocated for improved food consumption and nutritional deficiency reduction.

Healthy Diets and Reduced Land Pressure: Towards a Double Gain for Future Food Systems in Nigeria

“…No distinction is made regarding the livelihood system or geography of the household, even though these conditions will obviously drive both production and consumption decisions as well as dietary outcomes. Analyses of household consumption point to large differences across households in relation to socioeconomic, geographic and cultural variables [30,32,33]. In particular, the regional and rural/urban dimensions of nutrition warrant a deeper analysis if it is made useful for policy-making in Nigeria.…”

“…Brouwer et al report average daily caloric consumption from GHS for households in adult female equivalents, which is approximately 20% lower than the usual average adult equivalent. The study of Akerele (2015) computes per capita adult equivalents per rural and urban population, based on the most recent national food consumption and nutrition survey (FCNS) in 2003-04 [32]. In Aromolaran (2010), the caloric data are based on the author's survey of 480 households from semirural areas of south-western Nigeria [33].…”

Protein intake adequacy among Nigerian infants, children, adolescents and women and protein quality of commonly consumed foods

“…Cereals and grains were on average consumed daily by 81·3 % of the population. Several studies showed a contribution of cereals to the protein intake of approximately 20-40 % (36)(37)(38) . Legumes were eaten by 45·5 % of the population on average.…”

“…According to a study conducted in the south-east of Nigeria, animal-source products contributed only 3 % to the total daily energy intake (13) . Dairy products were found to account for barely 0·9 % of protein intake (36) . In general, dairy products were only consumed by 38·4 % of the population, with milk being consumed by only 31·9 % (Table 3).…”

“…The unprocessed (and thus uneatable) yam was shown to be of (marginally) better protein quality for the first SAA and second (lysine) limiting amino acids (DIAAS > 75 for population > 3 years of age). For both groundnuts and cowpeas, the first limiting amino acid was also lysine (DIAAS 27-38), the second SAA (groundnut DIAAS 40-58; cowpea DIAAS [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. The DIAAS of rice, maize, wheat and sorghum were, respectively, 42-69, 37-53, 30-43 and 18-26.…”