Adolescent Girls Nutrition
Context:
- Adolescent girls’ health and nutrition must be prioritised if India is to realise its full potential.
Adolescence:
- It is a crucial time for cognitive development, therefore enhancing availability to nutrients during this “second window of opportunity of growth” makes up for whatever nutrient deficiencies a girl child may have developed during earlier developmental stages.
- Additionally, as improved nutrition increases every young girl’s chances of participating in productive activities, adolescent health is a crucial indication of women’s participation in the labour market in India over the long run.
- Therefore, the nation has a huge chance to increase its demographic dividend by funding nutrition treatments for adolescent girls.
Increasing nutritional worry:
- Due to the advent of menstruation, adolescent females are particularly susceptible to undernutrition and anaemia. These worries are confirmed by the results of the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019–21), which indicated that a startling 59.1% of adolescent females were anaemic.
- According to studies, 41.9% of school-aged girls are underweight, which is a concerning trend.
- The fact that a variety of factors, from environmental circumstances to cultural norms that lack a gender-neutral atmosphere inside a household, affect the nutrition uptake in adolescent females makes the matter more complicated.
Concerns:
- Diets that are inadequately balanced and balanced can cause cognitive problems that have an impact on a student’s academic performance. Lower educational attainment as a result may limit prospects for employment and financial independence later in life.
- Adolescent girls who are undernourished are also more likely to develop chronic illnesses and experience pregnancy problems, which can place a greater financial burden on families and communities and increase poverty.
- Our daughters are less likely to actively participate in society through work, politics, or community involvement if they are less healthy and educated.
Reframe the interventions as:
- It is crucial that we redesign interventions so that they not only emphasise healthy eating but also take a life-cycle perspective, ensuring that no girl is left behind. Furthermore, a few tactical adjustments to current interventions can considerably broaden the breadth of their results.
- If properly carried out, the integration of numerous government projects under the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition programme (POSHAN) 2.0, including the Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG), is a positive move.
- Even greater awareness and nutrition education courses might be incorporated into targeted adolescent-focused projects like the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) to assist maintain beneficiary compliance.
- Adolescent girls’ nutrition-related Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) initiatives that are focused and geographically contextualised would undoubtedly increase demand and the adoption of beneficial behaviours.
- Effective convergence and collaboration between all pertinent departments in a way that promotes a team effort are very necessary for better results.
- Another critical stage in this process is the routine training of health professionals for efficient implementation and monitoring of various schemes as well as to adapt to a dynamic environment.
Conclusion:
- By putting the nutritional requirements of India’s girls first, we have a huge duty and a huge potential to assure the welfare and uplift of the country. Let’s work together to plant the seeds of a stronger, healthier India where every girl may realise her full potential. The strength of a nation is measured by its capacity to raise its future generations.
