Gender and nutrition
Many development interventions focus upon women as producers. Their role as consumers - and their own food security and nutritional concerns - are often neglected.
Women are particularly vulnerable to deficiencies in diet, at the various stages of their life cycle. Undernutrition during the early years reduces learning potential, their productivity over their lifetme and raises reproductive and maternal health risks. Cyclical loss of iron and childbearing pose further risks during puberty and adult life. Newborns and infants’ nutrition status is closely connected with the nutrition status of the mother before, during, and after pregnancy.
Women are therefore less able to gain access to other assets later in life and are caught in a vicious circle of poverty and undernutrition.
- Dietary diversity as a measure of women's diet quality in resource-poor areas: results from rural Bangladesh site
- In developing countries, where low-quality, monotonous grain- and tuber-based diets are the norm, the risk for micronutrient deficiencies is high, especially amongst women of reproductive age. However, despite being a global problem, data on women’s micronutrient status and the quality of women’s diets is scarce.
Latest Documents
- Smallholder agriculture’s contribution to better nutrition
- S. Wiggins; S. Keats / Overseas Development Institute, 2013
- Commissioned by the UK Hunger Alliance for the June 2013 'Hunger Summit' this report asks "How can smallholder agriculture contribute to improving food security and reducing under-nutrition?" Potentially, smallholder agricultur...
- Gender: A key dimension linking agricultural programs to improved nutrition and health
- R Meinzen-Dick / International Food Policy Research Institute, 2012
- Empirical evidence shows that increasing women’s control over land, physical assets, and financial assets serves to raise agricultural productivity, improve child health and nutrition, and increase expenditures on education, as ...
- Concept note for the preliminary study on rural women and the right to food
- M Zulficar / Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2012
- This concept note sets out the content of an upcoming study on rural women and the right to food. The study suggests intersections between women’s rights and the right to food, interrelating with discrimination around access to l...
- Gender in emergency food security, livelihoods and nutrition in Somalia
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2012
- This Food and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FNASU) desk based review examines traditional and changing gender roles and responsibilities in food security, livelihood and nutrition, examining what is known about the Somalian context and gap...
- Addressing the gender gap in agriculture: opportunities for collaboration in gender-responsive research
- Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, 2012
- This workshop report by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research’s (CGIAR) Gender and Agriculture Research Network identifies opportunities for cross programme collaboration to enhance CGIAR’s contribu...
