Current Progress and Future Directions in the Double Burden of Malnutrition among Women in South and Southeast Asian Countries

BACKGROUND: In order to combat the double burden of malnutrition the UN General Assembly has established under its Sustainable Development Goal-2 (SDG2) a set of nutritional targets that member countries need to achieve by 2030, with the goal of eradicating all forms of malnutrition worldwide. OBJECTIVES: In order to understand progress towards this goal, we reviewed recent trends and forecast future trends to examine the likelihood of South and Southeast Asian countries achieving the SDG2 target by 2030. We also considered how inequalities based on wealth, education, and urban/rural dwelling influence the current and future prevalence of underweight, overweight, and obesity. METHODS: We used population-representative cross-sectional data from the Demographic and Health Survey, conducted between 1996 and 2016, for 8…