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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Nutrition, Diets, and Health

Lilia Bliznashka

Research Fellow

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Bio

Lily Bliznashka is a Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit, based in Washington, DC. She is an interdisciplinary researcher with expertise in global health and nutrition, program evaluation, development economics, and quantitative methods. Her research focuses on assessing the effectiveness of multi-input nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions and the mechanisms through which they work to improve maternal and child health and nutrition globally. Lily also has expertise in early childhood development, including using qualitative and quantitative methods to understand how parenting interventions influence early childhood development and conducting implementation research to improve programming for young children and their parents. She has worked in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Lily has a PhD in Population Health Science from Harvard University. She also holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from Tufts University and a bachelor’s in Business Administration from Georgetown University. Lily’s publications are available on Google Scholar.

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Publications

Publications

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Journal Article

Diets, fruit and vegetables consumption, and nutritional status in Benin: A scoping review

2025Bliznashka, Lilia; Pather, Kamara; Mitchodigni, Irene M.; Hess, Sonja Y.; Olney, Deanna K.
Details

Diets, fruit and vegetables consumption, and nutritional status in Benin: A scoping review

Unhealthy diets, including low fruit and vegetables (F&V) intake, contribute to morbidity and mortality related to non-communicable diseases. Designing culturally appropriate interventions to improve diets and F&V intake requires an in-depth understanding of individual-level dietary patterns, household consumption patterns, and nutritional status resulting from inadequate F&V intake. In this scoping review, we summarised the literature on diets, F&V intake, and nutritional status in Benin. We searched PubMed from 2012 to August 2024 to identify articles on diets and nutritional status, and from 2002 to August 2024 to identify articles on F&V intake. We included 36 articles on diets, 27 on F&V intake, and 16 on nutritional status. Existing literature demonstrated that Beninese diets are cereal-based and monotonous, characterised by low diversity and low F&V intake across all population groups. Available evidence indicated a high burden of undernutrition in children <5 years of age, a rising prevalence of overnutrition in women of reproductive age, and a high prevalence of overnutrition in adults. Evidence on how diets and F&V intake vary by urban/rural location, season, and socioeconomic characteristics was limited and inconsistent. Two evaluations of garden irrigation programmes assessed impacts on women's dietary diversity and F&V consumption. Additional research is needed to improve our understanding of diets, F&V intake, and diet-related nutritional challenges and how they evolve over time and across different population groups. Understanding these gaps can help identify entry points and targets for interventions to improve diet quality and F&V intake in Benin.

Year published

2025

Authors

Bliznashka, Lilia; Pather, Kamara; Mitchodigni, Irene M.; Hess, Sonja Y.; Olney, Deanna K.

Citation

Bliznashka, Lilia; Pather, Kamara; Mitchodigni, Irene M.; Hess, Sonja Y.; and Olney, Deanna K. Diets, fruit and vegetables consumption, and nutritional status in Benin: A scoping review. Maternal and Child Nutrition. Article in Press. First published online on December 10, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13747

Country/Region

Benin

Keywords

Sub-saharan Africa; Western Africa; Africa; Diet; Fruits; Vegetables; Non-communicable Diseases; Household Consumption; Nutrition; Research; Children; Women

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13747 Source record

Project

Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets

Record type

Journal Article

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Working Paper

Program pathways for sustainable, nutrition sensitive school meals: An updated framework

2024Gelli, Aulo; Bliznashka, Lilia
Details

Program pathways for sustainable, nutrition sensitive school meals: An updated framework

Global burden of disease analyses estimate that 20% of deaths are due to unhealthy diets (Afshin et al., 2019). Micronutrient deficiencies impair children’s physical and mental development (Bailey et al., 2015). The prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents increased from less than 1% in 1975 to 6% for girls and 8% for boys in 2016 (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), 2017). The modernization of food systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) has led to rapid shifts to unhealthy diets and reductions in physical activity that have contributed to the global increase in rates of overweight and obesity (Popkin et al., 2020). Moreover, current dietary and population trends will exacerbate risks to people and the planet (Willett et al., 2019). Attention to nutrition during all stages of child and adolescent development is necessary to ensure that children can thrive over the 8,000-day period spanning infancy to adulthood, and to protect investments made earlier in the life cycle (Black et al., 2013). School feeding programs, or school meals, is a widely implemented intervention with documented impacts across social protection, education, health and nutrition (Alderman et al., 2024). Globally, programs reach about 368 million children for a total investment of about $70 billion a year (World Food Programme, 2020).

Year published

2024

Authors

Gelli, Aulo; Bliznashka, Lilia

Citation

Gelli, Aulo; and Bliznashka, Lilia. 2024. Program pathways for sustainable, nutrition sensitive school meals: An updated framework. CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/163697

Keywords

Balanced Diets; Micronutrient Deficiencies; Nutrition; School Feeding; Sustainability

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Working Paper

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Brief

Nutrition and diet profile: Benin

2024Diatta, Ampa Dogui; Olney, Deanna K.; Honeycutt, Sydney; Mitchodigni, Irene Medeme; Bliznashka, Lilia
Details

Nutrition and diet profile: Benin

Key Findings: -In Benin, undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent, and the prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing. -Diets in Benin have declined in quality over time, particularly among children. For example, low dietary diversity and inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption are prevalent. -Food-based dietary guidelines exist; however, awareness of the guidelines is unknown. -Most nutrition policies in Benin lack guidance on promoting fruit and vegetable intake. -Stronger evidence related to how to improve diet quality and combat malnutrition in Benin is needed to develop relevant interventions and policies.

Year published

2024

Authors

Diatta, Ampa Dogui; Olney, Deanna K.; Honeycutt, Sydney; Mitchodigni, Irene Medeme; Bliznashka, Lilia

Citation

Diatta, Ampa Dogui; Olney, Deanna K.; Honeycutt, Sydney; Mitchodigni, Irene Medeme; and Bliznashka, Lilia. 2024. Nutrition and diet profile: Benin. FRESH Country Brief November 2024. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Benin

Keywords

Western Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Nutrition; Diet; Trace Elements; Dietary Guidelines

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets

Record type

Brief

Events

2024 Global Child Nutrition Forum
IFPRI at External Event

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December 9 to 10, 2024

2024 Global Child Nutrition Forum

IFPRI is pleased to participate in the “2024 Global Child Nutrition Forum”. The Global Child Nutrition Foundation works with a global network of governments, businesses, and civil society organizations to support school meal programs that help children and communities thrive. GCNF provides training, technical assistance, and networking opportunities to help governments build national school meal […]

News

July 11, 2023 | Press Release

Women key to crop success in low-income countries

This post is a slightly modified version of the original press release issued by the University of Edinburgh. Empowering women farmers in low and middle-income countries can lead to greater crop diversity helping to improve year-round supply of healthy foods, suggests a new article published in The Lancet Planetary Health by a group of authors including […]

July 11, 2023 | In the News

Editorial: Empower women to grow (The Lancet Planetary Health)

“Almost half of the world’s agricultural workers are women and women farmers produce up to 80% of the food grown in LMICs. Despite their large contribution to agricultural labor, fewer than 20% of landowners globally are women,” writes The Lancet Planetary Health in an editorial featuring a new article co-authored by IFPRI’s Lilia Bliznashka, Aulo Gelli, and […]