Educating the rural women

Profs (Dr) R.D.Gupta.
In India and other parts of the world, “Food” is certainly women’s department. In this regard, Indian’s women are second to none in the world. Women in many of the rural areas still gather food fuel, cook and feed the family members; they are the last to eat and many times they have to be contented only with the left over.
Educating the rural women on the nutrition as well as food quality will certainly help, particularly in child nutrition and care since the future of a nation always depends upon how the children are nurtured and brought up. Woman as a mother has, therefore a vital role to play. Sociological studies in child health have clearly revealed the existence of an association between calorie malnutrition in infancy and retardations in mental development. A nation cannot be build up on retarded children. Rural women are therefore, required to be educated on the food quality of accessible food materials in their region so that children are supplied with a balanced diet. Literature on this particular topic is needed to be generated in simple language i.e., Hindi and English, as a matter of fact; the Nutritionists should seriously consider establishing mother craft centres where women can be taught in nutrition, health and hygiene of the children.
With the ushering of green revolution and agricultural progress, self sufficiency in food has been achieved. This was based on overall rice and wheat production of the irrigated areas in the country. Coming to dry land farming, however, a large part of rural families do not have adequate money to purchase inputs to be used for obtaining high production of crop. As such they have less money for purchase of needed amount of food. There is an urgent need for providing employment opportunities for women in the villages or other avenues of earning money required to be opened up. Developments of cottages industries have also helped the rural women to earn more amounts for purchasing the required food. Studies have shown that women can very well manage poultry farming, rabbit and goat rearing, which can bring them for substantial  earnings to the families. When men go to towns and cities, sometimes too far of places, then women  look  after agricultural field works themselves. There is need for special programmes to provide seed and fertilizer to village farming women.
However, so far as food is concerned let us educate rural women about nutrition, its components, balanced diet food vis-à-vis distinction between malnutrition and under nutrition.
Nutrition Education
Nutrition education for the women is extremely important. It is because the women serve as nurturers for the child and are always engaged in bringing up our posterities. The first education of children take place within the periphery of the family where they inhabit and comes to term with his/her immediate environment. As in many other aspects, the food preference of the parents, especially that of the mother, echo in the food habits of child and hence it is extremely vital that healthy eating habits are inculcated in the young. Even though the eating patterns during the formative years gradually change/ or get modified as the child grows older, their imprint never get fades.
Under nutrition and Mal nutrition
Studies have shown that food intake by the children with inadequate energy or calories is called under-nutrition or under- nourishment. This leads to starvation or demise of the children. Even the food meeting daily requirement of calorie, but lacking of proteins, fats, and vitamins and minerals create a number of deficiency diseases which is called mal-confronting nutrition.
Among the various nutrition related challenges confronting in these days, are those of under- nutrition and mal -nutrition. It has been brought out through a number of surveys that the food consumption both quantitatively and qualitatively is highly inadequate among the large segments of our society. While poverty is an important limiting factor, the rampant mal- nutrition is not only due to poverty, ignorance with regard to right kind and right amount of food coupled with non- availability of required food items, however, play a significant role in the present malnutrition scenario. Some of the reports point out that poverty related malnutrition is at the root of many diseases which when left untreated, claims the lives of malnourished children. Thousands of Indian children go blind on account of vitamin A deficiency. In the global context 40% of worlds under- nourished children and 35% of world’s low birth weight babies are found in India. Of the entire child’s death in India, nearly 50% can be attributed directly or indirectly malnourished.
Recently, malnutrition has largely focused on girls and women besides children(Ray, 2014). Over half of the children in India suffer from malnutrition of varying degrees. A large proportion of malnourished children are affected by protein energy malnutrition. Malnutrition is also quite active in women and children of backwards tribal dominated districts in Maharashtra due to scarcity of food hunger and poverty. Close to 52% of women and 74 % of children are suffering from anaemia. Anaemia in women is highest in Assam and lowest in Kerala. Productivity losses to individuals are estimated at more than 10% of life line earnings and gross domestic products (GDP) loss of under- nutrition and mal-nutrition runs as high as 3 to 4%. Malnutrition was significantly higher among children from low income group families and where the mothers were uneducated. In 100 focus districts, 42%  children below five years old were under weight and 59% were stunted in growth and about half were severely stunted (Anonymous,2012).
Strategies for the future
In the light of the facts as stated above, we require to focus on the nutrition and health education for women in the following ways:-
* Technical know-how regarding the right kind and right amount of food coupled with lot of availability of the required food items should be given due place in the health education for women.
* As the food items grown in the home garden act as an excellent medium for the children so the latest technology with regard to cultivation of vegetables and fruits in the kitchen garden is required to be passed on to the women particularly relating to nutrition.
* For establishing a kitchen garden, it is not even necessary to have a large plot of land. Where space is a constraint as is the case in most of the urban areas, pots, plastics boxes or wooden crates may be used.
* Fresh fruits and vegetables from home garden provide higher levels of nutrients particularly the vitamins and minerals.
* Technical know- how with  regard to lying out of the kitchen or home garden is essential to discuss in details before the women.
(The author is  former Associate Dean Cum Chief Scientist, K V K,SKUAST-JAMMU.)
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