CLOSE LINKS BETWEEN A BALANCED DIET AND MENSTRUAL HYGIENE

The strength of the relationship between a correct nutrition and a healthy

menstrual condition is often undervalued and unknown. Sometimes, in fact,

the consequences of malnutrition are pervasive and massive but also hidden.

This is why the malnutrition, specially concerning under nutrition, represents

a global challenge that requires both social and economic efforts.

Malnutrition can be seen as an outcome of bad interaction between different

agents, such as: agricultural food system, environment, health system, and

the individual-household decision making process. It is fundamental that in an

enabling environment, completed with specific intervention and programmes,

woman are allowed to have access to safe food, social safety nets, physical

and mental care, health and family planning services and water sanitation.

Moreover, all those factors contributes to the empowerment of women,

increasing their acknowledge and consciousness about nutrition and hygienic

issues.

A big role in women's empowerment is played by agriculture. In fact,

agriculture not only has effects on expenditures and consumption of food, but

also has a strong link with women's employment and their own nutrition and

health conditions. A problem related with agriculture, as findings shows, is

that farmers tend to sell more expensive and nourishing products, retaining

less expensive cereals for domestic consumption. This is why is necessary to

support an environmentally sustainable food production that includes a

diversification of products, allowing the availability of nutrient-dense foods

and small-scale livestock.

Speaking more particularly about woman’s health, we should consider the

age group between 15 and 25 years old, the younger women group among

whom fertility is more concentrated, who face the largest disadvantage in

India. This is considered a problem especially in relation to the pre-pregnant

underweight condition in India, in fact scholars affirms that approximately

42.2% of pre-pregnant women have their Body Mass Index (BMI) under

18.5kg/m2, this means that a strong percentage of Indian women before

pregnancy suffers from underweight and malnutrition.

But how this reflects on women's life? First of all, it has implication in work

capacity and productivity, regardless the work they carry out. It means that in

a work environment women in this condition may be considered less

productive. Another reflection implicates the social-physical and cognitive

sphere. Good nourishment allows developing all spheres in the most

appropriate way, in order to improve individual benefit. Finally, a very

important reflection of nourishment in women's life is related to the fetal and

child nutrition and development. An improvement of consciousness and

awareness in this field not only helps to ameliorate maternal healthcare and

safety, but also may largely reduce mortality in childhood and child's

undernourishment. In this sense, an improvement may have great reflection

on new generations learning capacity, improving the whole society.

But what does balanced diet means? A balanced diet is a correct

consumption of a large variety of food, which means that is appropriate to

consume a right quantity of various nutritious daily. An inappropriate diet may

cause healthy problems such as micronutrient deficiency, like a lack of

important vitamins and minerals, generating various types of symptoms.

In conclusion, all those evidences bring us to consider how much important

are good and healthy diet habits, balancing correctly all nourishments, in

order to ameliorate woman’s health and lifestyle.

-Grandoni Laura