Historically, the process of nutrition transition begins with the shifts in demographic transition,
moving away from high to low mortality, high to low fertility, high percentage of young population
to high proportion of elderly population, high to low population growth rate; and short to long life
expectancy at birth. The objective is to identify where Nepal is in demographic transition and
whether demographic transition is considered as one of the proximate covariates of nutrition
transition. Nepal’s position in the demographic transition has been identified by using Popkin’s
framework which is scaled from Pattern I to Pattern V. The time series trends indicated that new
patterns of demographic transition have been observed during 1995-2010, which is similar to the
pattern IV of the nutrition transition as described by Popkin. Before 1970, the death rates were
fluctuating around 30 to 50 deaths per thousand populations. The birth rate per thousand populations
was more than 44, which was really high. Both fertility and mortality appear to start declining
from 1970. During 1995-2010, birth rate declined from 38 to 24 per thousand populations.
The time series trends indicated that new patterns of demographic transition have been observed
during 1990-2010, which is similar to the transition between Pattern III and IV of the nutrition
transition. Nepal is a country with faster declined in mortality followed by fertility decline, increasing
life expectancy above 60 years, decreasing age-structure of below 15 years of population,
increasing trends of urban population and beginning of large scale international migration. It may
be concluded from above evidences that Nepal is across the new pattern of transition after 1990s
in the demographic transition including the increasing risk of chronic diseases of elderly people
related to excess consumption of fat, sugar and process foods.