Nutritional issues for women in developing countries

Abstract

The topic of nutrition of women in developing countries has largely been equivalent to maternal nutrition with emphasis on the effect of the mother's nutritional status on birth weight and lactational performance. Little attention has been paid to the well-being of the mother and the effects of nutrition on her performance in social and economic activities. In the present review I will limit discussion of maternal nutrition to its relationship with the nutritional status of the mother as opposed to the child, and will focus on other aspects of women's nutrition. Issues related to reproduction are the topic of another review in the present symposium (Goldberg, 1997).Recognition of the importance of nutrition of women in developing countries has increased over the past decade with initiatives by a number of international organizations helping to encourage work in this area. The United Nations Administrative Committee on CoordinatiodSub-Committee on Nutrition (ACC/SCN) held a symposium in 1989 on Women and Nutrition (Administrative Committee on CoordinatiodSub-Committee on Nutrition, 1990) which considered issues such as women's work loads and time constraints. The International Center for Research on Women together with the US Agency for International Development co-ordinated a research programme, involving twenty projects in developing countries, on Maternal Nutrition and Health Care from 1987-90 (Parker et al. 1990). Although this second initiative focused on maternal nutrition, the emphasis was on the mother's nutritional status rather than pregnancy outcomes. The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund dealt with the topic of women's work and the need for access to child care (Himes et al. 1992) and launched the Girl Child Initiative to address issues related to gender discrimination in childhood. These programmes mark a needed broadening of the area of women's nutrition to finally move away from equating it with maternal nutrition. DEVELOPING COUNTRIESDeveloping countries form a diverse group with varied economic and socio-cultural conditions. They range from the so-called least-developed countries to the rapidlydeveloping economies in east Asia and encompass market economies through highlycentralized ones. Per capita gross national product (GNP) vanes from as little as $100 in countries in Africa such as Mozambique, Tanzania and Ethiopia to over $2000 in some Latin American (e.g. Costa Rica, Brazil) and Asian (e.g. Malaysia, Thailand) countries (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, 1996). Differences in basic infrastructure and the priority given to expenditure on health, education and welfare result in discrepancies between GNP and the health and nutrition status of the population. The contrasting examples of Sri Lanka and Libya are shown in Table 1. Socio-cultural factors, particularly as they relate to the position of women in society, are also important in determining the nutrition of women.Some developing countries are experiencing an epidemiological transition, with a ...

Quality of life among pregnant women with chronic energy deficiency in rural Bangladesh

“…The overall low scores found in this study are not unusual in the context of rural Bangladesh where gender inequalities that impact on women's health have been well documented including intra-household status of women and corresponding discrepancies in food intake [24,25], but workload comparable to male counterpart [26]. These factors contributed to nutritional deprivation, and the extraordinary low QALY scores for women suffering from CED found in our study.…”

Infrastructure, women’s time allocation, and economic development

“…Thus, abstracting from gender-based discrimination in the public education system itself, and assuming no depreciation for simplicity, the human suggests that the mechanism generating the correlation between parents' and children's education is related to the greater time invested by educated mothers in the quality of their children (see Moav (2005)). 20 Note that gender bias could also take the form of differences in spending the fraction θ R of net income between boys and girls; there is indeed some evidence suggesting that expressed gender preferences translate into discrimination in health care and nutritione.g., less food being given to girls (see Walker (1997)).…”

Influence of gender roles and rising food prices on poor, pregnant women’s eating and food provisioning practices in Dhaka, Bangladesh

“…The gender order also disadvantages women through gendered food allocation that often privileges males [ 16 ], an inequitable distribution of food that can begin in childhood [ 17 ]. This leads to women’s lifelong poor nutritional status, particularly when combined with multiple pregnancies and strenuous workloads [ 18 ].…”