IN BANGLADESH, where 40 per cent of adolescent girls suffer from anaemia and 35 per cent of children under five experience stunting, the need for nutrition-sensitive food systems has never been more urgent. These statistics represent not just numbers but millions of young lives being compromised at the most critical stages of their development. While the country has rightfully celebrated its achievements in agricultural productivity and food grain self-sufficiency, our local food systems remain disproportionately focused on calorie availability rather than nutritional quality. This fundamental mismatch between what our food systems produce and what our growing adolescents actually need represents one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time.
Adolescence represents a unique and often overlooked window of opportunity in human development. During this period of rapid physical growth and cognitive maturation, nutritional requirements surpass those of adulthood by 20-50 per cent for essential nutrients like iron, zinc, and vitamins. Yet paradoxically, this is precisely when many Bangladeshi youth experience their worst nutritional deficits. The consequences extend far beyond individual health, affecting educational achievement, future earning potential, and even the cognitive capacity of the next generation of parents. This intergenerational cycle of malnutrition threatens to undermine Bangladesh’s hard-won development gains and its aspirations to become an upper-middle-income country.
This article presents both a compelling case for urgent action and a practical roadmap for transforming Bangladesh’s food systems to meet the specific nutritional needs of its 36 million adolescents. We will examine the systemic failures that have created this crisis, highlight successful interventions from around the developing world, and propose concrete, actionable solutions tailored to Bangladesh’s unique cultural and agricultural context. The solutions we propose are neither theoretical nor aspirational—they are proven approaches that have worked in countries facing similar challenges, from Vietnam’s school gardens to Nigeria’s innovative nutrition marketing campaigns.
Why adolescents left behind
THE nutritional neglect of adolescents in Bangladesh stems from multiple intersecting factors that create a perfect storm of dietary insufficiency. At the biological level, adolescents experience growth spurts that increase their nutritional needs dramatically. A teenage boy, for instance, requires 20 per cent more calories during peak growth periods than he will as an adult man. For girls, the onset of menstruation creates substantial iron needs that often go unmet — explaining why half of Bangladesh’s adolescent girls suffer from anemia, a condition that causes fatigue, reduces cognitive function, and increases risks during future pregnancies.
These biological vulnerabilities collide with problematic shifts in dietary patterns. Over the past decade, rapid urbanisation and changing lifestyles have led to a doubling of fast food consumption among Bangladeshi adolescents, according to ICDDR,B research. Traditional nutrient-dense foods like small fish, lentils, and leafy greens are being displaced by processed snacks that are high in calories but poor in micronutrients. In urban slums especially, adolescents face a triple burden of malnutrition — simultaneously experiencing undernutrition, obesity, and micronutrient deficiencies— a paradoxical situation where one can be both overweight and malnourished.
The roots of this crisis extend deep into our food production systems. Market dynamics and agricultural policies have long incentivised farmers to prioritise high-yield staple crops like rice and wheat over more nutritious but less profitable vegetables, legumes, and small fish. The result is a food system that produces abundant calories but fails to deliver the diversity of nutrients adolescents need. This problem is compounded by cultural norms around food distribution within households, where UNICEF data shows adolescent girls often eat last and least, receiving smaller portions and lower-quality foods than their male counterparts.
Even institutions that should support adolescent nutrition frequently work against it. School canteens across Bangladesh overwhelmingly sell chips, soda, and other nutrient-poor snacks rather than affordable, healthy alternatives. The average school food environment actively undermines nutritional goals, creating habits of poor food choice that can last a lifetime. Meanwhile, nutrition education remains minimal in school curricula, leaving adolescents ill-equipped to make informed dietary choices as they gain independence.
Successful models
LOOKING beyond Bangladesh’s borders reveals several proven approaches to making food systems more responsive to adolescent nutritional needs. Vietnam’s remarkable success in reducing adolescent anaemia by 18 per cent came through an innovative school garden programme that achieved multiple objectives simultaneously. Students actively participated in growing iron-rich leafy greens like moringa and amaranth, learning agricultural skills while creating a sustainable source of nutritious foods for school meals. Excess seeds were distributed for home cultivation, extending the programme’s impact beyond school walls. This model’s beauty lies in its simplicity and replicability — it requires no expensive technology, just small plots of land, basic training, and institutional commitment.
Nigeria’s ‘Eat Orange’ campaign demonstrated the power of creative marketing in changing adolescent eating behaviours. By promoting vitamin A-rich sweet potatoes through teen influencers and popular street food vendors, the campaign successfully rebranded a traditional food as trendy and desirable. Street vendors began selling sweet potato fries alongside their usual offerings, while home cooks incorporated the vegetable into familiar dishes. The campaign showed that with the right messaging and channels, adolescents will enthusiastically adopt nutritious foods — a crucial lesson for Bangladesh, where similar strategies could promote indigenous superfoods like kangkong (water spinach) or mola fish.
India’s Poshan Abhiyaan (Nutrition Mission) provides another valuable blueprint, particularly in its comprehensive approach to supplementation and education. The programme delivers weekly iron-folic acid supplements through schools and community health workers, coupled with engaging nutrition education tailored to adolescent sensibilities. What makes this intervention particularly effective is its recognition that providing nutrients alone isn’t enough — young people need to understand why good nutrition matters and how to achieve it within their cultural and economic contexts.
These international examples share several key features that Bangladesh would do well to emulate: they are multisectoral (involving agriculture, education, and health sectors); they engage adolescents as active participants rather than passive recipients; and they work through existing systems like schools and community networks rather than creating parallel structures. Most importantly, they demonstrate that adolescent nutrition can be dramatically improved with targeted, culturally appropriate interventions.
Comprehensive action plan
TO TRANSFORM Bangladesh’s food systems to better serve adolescents, we propose an ambitious but achievable five-point plan that addresses production, access, education, and policy simultaneously.
First, we must fundamentally reorient local agriculture toward nutrition-sensitive production. This begins with redirecting agricultural subsidies from staple crops to more nutrient-dense options like iron-rich lentils (masoor dal), vitamin A-rich mola fish, and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. The government could pilot this approach in select upazilas, providing both financial incentives for farmers and guaranteed markets through school feeding programmes. In urban areas, rooftop gardening initiatives could transform Dhaka’s concrete landscape into productive space for growing fresh vegetables, with technical support from agricultural extension services and participation from local youth groups.
Second, schools must become central hubs for nutrition intervention. This requires establishing mandatory nutrition standards for all school canteens, replacing soda with fortified lassi and chips with roasted chickpeas or other healthy local snacks. More ambitiously, we should implement ‘grow and eat’ programmes in at least 500 schools by 2026, modelled after Vietnam’s successful gardens. These programmes would not only improve nutrition but also teach valuable agricultural skills and foster environmental stewardship. School kitchens could incorporate harvests into midday meals, creating a direct connection between cultivation and consumption.
Third, we must actively engage adolescents themselves as nutrition champions. This could involve training 10,000 peer educators to promote healthy eating in their communities through social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube, where they might share recipes for nutrient-packed dishes like spinach-filled parathas or lentil-based snacks. Simultaneously, we should develop a certification programme for youth-friendly food vendors near schools and colleges, providing small subsidies or microloans to help them offer healthy options like fortified noodles with vegetables or fruit smoothies at competitive prices.
Fourth, technology can play a transformative role in improving adolescent nutrition access and education. Strategic partnerships with e-commerce platforms like Chaldal or Foodpanda could deliver subsidised nutrient-dense foods (sprouted lentils, eggs, seasonal fruits) directly to urban slums and university dormitories. A Bangla-language nutrition app, similar to India’s ‘Poshan’ but tailored to adolescent interests, could provide gamified nutrition challenges, recipe ideas, and even connect users to local sources of healthy foods.
Finally, these interventions require supportive policy frameworks and dedicated funding. We propose establishing an Adolescent Nutrition Fund within the National Nutrition Services, initially allocating 1 per cent of its budget specifically for 10-19-year-olds. Fiscal measures like a 20 per cent tax on sugary drinks — modeled after Mexico’s successful policy — could generate substantial revenue for school nutrition programmes while discouraging unhealthy consumption patterns. Most importantly, adolescent nutrition indicators must be formally incorporated into Bangladesh’s next Five-Year Plan and subsequent development frameworks, ensuring sustained high-level attention to this critical issue.
Common concerns and misconceptions
SCEPTICISM about improving adolescent nutrition typically takes two forms: doubts about effectiveness and concerns about cost. The first objection — that adolescents won’t eat healthy foods — is conclusively disproven by Nigeria’s experience with its ‘Eat Orange’ campaign. When nutritious foods are presented in appealing, culturally relevant ways — whether as sweet potato fries or vitamin-fortified street snacks — adolescents embrace them enthusiastically. The key lies in understanding youth preferences and working with rather than against them.
Financial concerns similarly fail to withstand scrutiny. World Bank analyses demonstrate that every dollar invested in adolescent nutrition yields 45 in economic returns through increased productivity and reduced health care costs. Conversely, Bangladesh already loses an estimated one billion annually to malnutrition-related productivity declines — a figure that will only grow as today’s malnourished adolescents enter the workforce. Viewed through this lens, food system transformation represents not an expense but a strategic investment in national development.
Implementation challenges certainly exist, but none are insurmountable. Agricultural extension services already have the networks to support farmers transitioning to nutrient-dense crops; schools have the infrastructure to serve better meals; and Bangladesh’s vibrant tech sector has the capacity to develop innovative nutrition apps. What’s needed most is coordinated leadership and political will to prioritise adolescent nutrition as a national development imperative.
Urgent need for action
BANGLADESH stands at a critical juncture where intentional, well-designed action on adolescent nutrition could yield benefits for generations to come. The solutions we have outlined — from school nutrition gardens to adolescent-focused food policies — are neither speculative nor prohibitively expensive. They are practical, proven approaches that have worked in countries facing similar challenges.
We must begin immediately with three concrete steps: piloting school nutrition gardens in selected upazilas to refine the model for Bangladeshi contexts; launching a national ‘Healthy Street Food’ certification programme to improve food environments around schools; and formally incorporating adolescent nutrition indicators into national development plans to ensure accountability.
As the Vietnamese proverb wisely reminds us, ‘The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.’ For Bangladesh’s adolescents — and for the nation’s future prosperity, stability, and human capital development — the time to act is unquestionably today. By implementing these targeted, evidence-based strategies, we can build food systems that properly nourish our youth and secure a healthier, more productive future for all Bangladeshis.
Musharraf Tansen is a development analyst and former country representative of the Malala Fund.
