An optimisation model for evaluating the food intake for meeting the nutrient requirements for the ICDS-SNP provisions with the optimal cost

The nutritional status of young Indian children continues to be sub-optimal despite decades of programmatic interventions. The prevalence of stunting and wasting in <5y old children are relatively stagnant at 35.5% and 19.3%, respectively, according to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5. The critical period during which growth faltering occurs, starts from weaning, at 6 months of age, and continues up to 2-3 years of age, resulting in an increase in stunting prevalence with age, and this is borne out by the NFHS and other national surveys. This occurs despite the Supplementary Nutrition Program of the Integrated Children Development Service (ICDS-SNP) of the Indian Government. Since this program requires inputs to provide the best possible nutrition in different geographic and social circumstances, we created a nutrient optimization model for the ICDS-SNP, which could recommend the quantities of selected raw foods to meet child nutrient requirements with a cost ceiling. A linear programming optimization technique was used to derive the required quantities of different raw food items to meet the ICDS-SNP targets. The objective was to minimize the total cost incurred, subject to the constraints of meeting the nutrient requirements and the fund allocation set by the ICDS-SNP. The model computed the required quantity of selected raw foods to be consumed by beneficiaries to meet the ICDS-SNP mandated daily nutrient requirements of 500 kcal energy and 12-15g protein. These optimized solutions also met the requirements of selected micronutrients at 30% of their Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA), within allocated cost constraints. Additionally, user specific and nutrition expert- advised constraints were also considered. Since program delivery is operationally different for 1-3 and 3-6y old children in this age band, we considered separate optimizations for these ages. We also created an interactive user-app for this purpose for use by stakeholders involved in the ICDS-SNP, as well as a separate interactive app for public use, hosted at https://datatools.sjri.res.in/ICDS/. By using the present model, it is possible to run an optimal and feasible ICDS-SNP that meets nutrition goals, and which can go a long way in improving the nutritional status of Indian children.