My country that I have chosen for this course is India and I will be focusing on malnutrition in women. Malnutrition is possessing a lack of necessary nutrients for the body, not having enough food or not having access to food. According to United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, a third of women in India are undernourished. With this being said, when undernourished women are pregnant it is more than likely that their baby will be undernourished as well. Causing an intergenerational cycle of malnutrition (UNICEF). In the journal “Women’s Malnutrition in India: The Role of Economic and Social Status” by Shikha Dahiya and Brinda Viswanathan, they mention that the health status of women in India is one of the lowest in the world.
So how come women in India are undernourished? Well there’s some factors we can look at poor quality of food, inadequate quantity of food, limited access to food, and women having to do heavy household work with limited support from males (Dahiya and Viswanathan 2015). All of these factors play roles as to why women in India are undernourished. In my Social Differences and Social Inequalities class we learned that worldwide there is a lot of food waste that happens. Food waste can be another reason why people in general and in India are undernourished. In India, for families that live in slums or that are poor, they have limited access to water and food. The children of the family have to walk miles and miles just to find food and water for their family. Often times, they have to skip school in order to do this. Dahiya and Viswanathan talk about how being undernourishment is the cause and effect of poverty. Because they are not receiving a quality diet they don’t understand the benefits of a quality diet. In the The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, the 2018 report shows 195.9 million people are undernourished in India and 51.4% of women are diagnosed with anemia (indianfoodbanking).
Nutrition is important in India especially women because they are the ones who are responsible for the development of babies during pregnancy. If a woman is not taking care of her health and is undernourished it is likely that her baby will be undernourished as well. From a cultural standpoint, it causes an ongoing cycle of malnutrition to continue generation after generation.
Furthermore, if a woman’s child is undernourished there is a higher chance they will die from common diseases and viruses such as colds and flus (UNICEF). This goes for women as well, they will be able to fight off common viruses and disease if they have the proper diet and nutrients. If women had a proper diet I’m sure there would not be a high rate of women being anemic.
Another reason why nutrition is important is because it improves and maintains the lifestyle of women from a national health perspective. It will help them fight off diseases, provide nourishment for their children, keep their bodies healthy and functioning correctly.
If India would provide more resources for the lower status of people in the caste system such as access to quality food, education, clean water, and proper sanitation, their wouldn’t be as much undernourishment as there is now.
References
Dahiya, Shikha, and Brinda Viswanathan. “Women’s Malnutrition in India: The Role of Economic and Social Status – Shikha Dahiya, Brinda Viswanathan, 2015.” SAGE Journals, 2015, journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0973801015579756.
Swaminathan, Hema, and Arnab Mukherji. “Slums and malnourishment: evidence from women in India.” American journal of public health vol. 102,7 (2012): 1329-35. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.300424
“Hunger in India.” Hunger in India | India FoodBanking Network, www.indiafoodbanking.org/hunger. “Women Nutrition.” UNICEF, UNICEF India, unicef.in/whatwedo/6/women-nutrition.