{"id":8389,"date":"2020-06-03T15:51:49","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T10:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=8389"},"modified":"2023-04-07T18:12:22","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T12:42:22","slug":"empowering-women-in-nutrition-and-health-related-aspects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/empowering-women-in-nutrition-and-health-related-aspects\/","title":{"rendered":"Empowering women in nutrition and health related aspects"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Empowering women in nutrition and health related aspects<\/h1>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Relevance:<span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\"> G.S paper I:<\/span> Society and social issues: Women Issues &amp;\u00a0 <span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">G.S paper II:<\/span> Polity And Governance:\u00a0Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States;\u00a0\u00a0Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector\/Services relating to Health. &amp; <span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">Sociology:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0Social Changes in India:\u00a0Programmes of rural development, Community Development Programme, cooperatives, poverty alleviation schemes.\u00a0Challenges of Social<\/span> Transformation:<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Introduction:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/ungc-production\/resources\/images\/65\/show@2x\/resource_preview_65.png?1386640063\" alt=\"Women's Empowerment Principles \u2013 Equality Means Business | UN ...\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Over the past few decades, empowerment of the masses in general and that of the women in particular, has been gaining due attention globally.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Women empowerment is specifically important not only from the perspective of social justice and equality but also as a means for achieving the various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including poverty reduction as well as improving nutrition, health and education of the people at large.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Researches indicate that women (as mothers\/primary caretakers) are more likely to influence health and nutrition outcomes of their families, specially the children. Therefore, women empowerment is becoming a top priority in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of the policies\/programs of every nation.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/bmj\/351\/bmj.h4173\/F1.large.jpg\" alt=\"Nutrition and health in women, children, and adolescent girls ...\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Some household-level indicators for measuring women empowerment viz. nutrition and health issues:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\u2022 Women\u2019s involvement in household decision making:<\/p>\n<p>1. economic decisions (finance, expenditure, resource allocation);<\/p>\n<p>2. social and domestic matters (e.g. marriage etc.);<\/p>\n<p>3. children related decisions (like schooling, health &amp; nutrition).<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Women\u2019s access\/control over household resources (including cash, assets, income, freedom of mobility).<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Power &amp; money relationship (between the spouses); social hierarchy; appreciation and sense of self-worth (self-esteem).<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Some important laws enacted prior to Independence for reducing social hostilities towards women:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\u2022 Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, 1856<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Female Infanticide Act, 1870<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Married Women Property Act, 1874<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The Hindu Women\u2019s Right to Property Act, 1937<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Various acts to ensure special provision\/preserve the interest of women from immediate post-independence till date:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\u2022 Special Marriage Act, 1954<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Maternity Benefit Act, 1961<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Equal Remuneration Act, 1976<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 National Commission for Women Act, 1990<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY):<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>A safe motherhood intervention under the National Health Mission (NHM) for curbing maternal and neonatal mortality by promoting institutional deliveries especially among the pregnant women belonging to weaker socio-economic strata (SC, ST, BPL households).<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">National Health Mission (NHM):<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>A flagship programme of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, it addresses malnutrition among women. Its components include:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Anaemia Mukt Bharat; organization of Village Health and Nutrition Days as well as Sanitation and Nutrition days (for providing maternal &amp; child health services along with awareness generation on maternal and child care);<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation; calcium supplementation and promotion of iodized salt consumption.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Umbrella scheme of ICDS:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Under the Umbrella scheme of ICDS, a number of programs\/schemes address nutrition and health related issues of the women which include:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Anganwadi Services Scheme which aims to improve the nutrition\/health status of pregnant women and nursing mothers, thereby, lowering the incidence of mortality, morbidity and malnutrition among them. The beneficiaries are provided supplementary nutrition, nutrition and health education, immunisation, health check-up and referral services\u2014all of which collectively help in uplifting their nutrition and health status.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 <strong>Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY)\/Maternity Benefit Programme<\/strong> (launched in January, 2017) under which pregnant women and nursing mothers receive a cash benefit of Rs. 5,000\/- in three instalments, on fulfilling the respective conditionalities: early registration of pregnancy, ante-natal check-up, child-birth registration and completion of first cycle of vaccination (applicable only for the 1st living child). The eligible beneficiaries also receive cash incentive under the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY). Hence, on an average, a woman gets Rs. 6,000\/- for her first living child-birth.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 <strong>Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG<\/strong>) provides services to out-of-school adolescent girls (11\u201314 years) for their self-development and empowerment; improving nutritional &amp; health status; promoting awareness regarding health, hygiene and nutrition; giving support to out-of-school adolescent girls for successfully transiting back to formal schooling or bridge learning\/skill training and upgrading their home-based life skills.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022<strong> POSHAN Abhiyaan<\/strong> was launched in December, 2017 to improve nutritional status of adolescent girls, pregnant women and nursing mothers in a time bound manner.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Educated, well-nourished and healthy girl child in the times to come will grow into well nourished adolescent girls and later they will become healthy women and mothers who in turn are expected to bear well-nourished and healthy children. This can help in perpetuating an inter-generational cycle of healthy progeny.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Ways of empowering women in nutrition and health related aspects:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/66.media.tumblr.com\/dd623eb8fa23b7cfeb1027cb7f74d697\/tumblr_inline_p54wmgmCiY1t27h01_540.png\" alt=\"Making adolescent girls a priority, not an afterthought, in the ...\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Dietary diversification or bringing variety in the household diets;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Adopting nutrient enhancing techniques like mutual supplementation, germination, fermentation, etc. in their day-to-day cooking\/food preparation for the household;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Promoting the use of nutrient rich local\/seasonal\/under-utilized foods or the so called commonly-discarded foods (e.g. radish leaves, pea-peels, cauliflower stalks etc);<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Homestead-gardening to maximise sustainable gain at the household\/community level (increasing availability, access and consumption of wide variety of nutritious foods);<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 In rural settings, promoting mixed cropping and integrated farming systems;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Using fortified\/bio-fortified foods, esp. micronutrient-enriched foods;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Inculcating the habit of food and water conservation among family members with due emphasis on avoiding wastage at all levels;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Nutrition education to encourage the consumption of nutritious, safe and healthy diets.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Way forward:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\u2022 It is imperative to suitably modify the policies\/programs for addressing nutrition and health related empowerment of women, attending to the women\u2019s issues in all the facets, capturing emerging challenges, providing access to optimum healthcare services, ensuring nutritionally well-balanced meals and ultimately positioning women as equal partners in development and progress of the household, community and the nation.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Only unrelenting nutrition, health and socio-economic empowerment of women can help them to claim their own and the family\u2019s rights\/entitlements and they can play an important role in improving their family\u2019s as well as their own nutrition and health status.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Conclusion:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\u2022 It is important to reiterate that women empowerment is rather crucial for improving nutrition and health related outcomes of the family. Government has accorded top-most priority to tackle malnutrition among women and is making conscientious efforts to address the issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The broad vision and mission of the Ministry of Women and Child Development is to empower women so that they can live with dignity as well as contribute as equal partners in national development in a non-violent and discrimination-free environment.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 A well-nourished, healthy and empowered woman is not only an asset to the family but to the society and the nation as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>For more such notes, Articles, News &amp; Views Join our Telegram Channel.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Telegram Link\" href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Click the link below to see the details about the UPSC \u2013Civils courses offered by Triumph IAS.<\/strong> <\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" title=\"Courses available\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php\">https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Empowering women in nutrition and health related aspects Relevance: G.S paper I: Society and social issues: Women Issues &amp;\u00a0 G.S<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,18,7,13,114,116],"tags":[2869,2348,521,2865,2051,184,2868,2864,1686,2867,2058,589,1967,2866,2871,1510,2872,2863,666,392,2870,1800,320],"class_list":["post-8389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-ii","category-general-studies-i","category-society-and-social-issues","category-sociology-optional","category-sociology-optional-paper-ii","tag-empowerment-of-women","tag-equality","tag-health","tag-icds","tag-janani-suraksha-yojana","tag-laws","tag-maternal-and-child-health","tag-national-health-mission","tag-nutrition","tag-poshan-abhiyaan","tag-poverty-reduction","tag-pradhan-mantri-matru-vandana-yojana","tag-rural-development","tag-scheme-for-adolescent-girls","tag-social-changes-in-india","tag-social-justice","tag-social-transformation","tag-special-provisions","tag-sustainable-development-goals","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc","tag-vulnerable-sections-of-the-population","tag-welfare-schemes","tag-women-empowerment"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8389"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13732,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8389\/revisions\/13732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}