Title Page Title: Maternal nutritional status, food intake and pregnancy weight gain in Nepal O Acharya 1 , F Zotor 2 , P Chaudhary 3 , P Amuna 4 and B, Ellahi 5 1 Dr Ojaswi Acharya, Head of Department Nutrition and Health, Action Contre La Faim, Nepal ojaswiacharya@gmail.com 2 Dr Francis.B. Zotor Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Hohoe, Ghana, West Africa francisfirst@gmail.com 3 Dr Pushpa Chaudhary, President, Nepal Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (NESOG) deopushpa@gmail.com 4 Dr Paul Amuna, School of Science, University of Greenwich at Medway, ME4 4TB p.amuna@gmail.com 5 Dr Basma Ellahi, Reader, Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of Chester, CH14BJ, UK *corresponding author, b.ellahi@chester.ac.uk Author contributions Conceived and designed the study: OA, PA and ZBF. Reviewed methodology and analysis: PA, FBZ. Performed the data collection OA. Interpreted the findings: OA, BE, FBZ, PA. Wrote the paper: OA, FBZ, BE. Edited the paper: OA, FBZ, BE, PC. Acknowledgements Our thanks to Dr Pramee Bajrachracharya, Dr Satish Vaidya, Prashant Amtekoppa Venkatesh, Mr. Umesh Aryal as interns in the hospital who participated in data collection. Government Health Workers from the study site Paropakar Maternity Hospital, Dhungkharka (Kavre) and Sarlahi District were trained for data collection. We could not have collected the data without their input. All the pregnant women who participated in the study, without them the project would not have been successful. Amanda Aitken, University of Chester is acknowledged in the preparation of this manuscript.