Household Approaches to Factors Affecting Nutrition: A Study of Two Indian Districts

Abstract

A number of factors affect a household’s nutritional status: food production; access and availability of food; care in the home; health, water, sanitation and hygiene practices; women’s agency and empowerment; and women’s role as primary caregivers. This paper explores these factors at the household level by interviewing 100 women across 4 rural villages in Bijapur, Karnataka and Sabarkantha, Gujarat. This study seeks to improve our perception of how women and their families understand nutrition and whether some of the factors affecting nutrition are given less importance compared to others. The authors find that households think of nutrition primarily as healthy food that provides energy for physical work. This work is part of the Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) programme