Food and nutritional security analysis of farm women in Siwalik region of North Western Himalayan Region

Abstract

The multifaceted challenges concerning women's health in hills of Uttarakhand is associated with increasing malnutrition in the State, which ultimately affect the nutritional dividend of the nation. Sub-Himalayan range of the northern Indian subcontinent include regions where an overwhelming number of rural women have always been a part of the active work force in agriculture and allied sector. Present study is an attempt to document the nutritional status of farm women emphasizing their food consumption pattern, dietary intakes and diversification, energy and nutrient balance in Uttarakhand State in the year 2019-20. Collected field level data were analyzed with the help of suitable statistical techniques. It was found that 48 % women in foot hills and 40% women in mid hills had low dietary diversity. The findings also suggest that the prevalence of Chronic Energy Deficiency was high among farm women and energy balances in the respondents (from 171.97 kcal to 415.32 kcal) are corresponding to different grades of BMI. Multivariate regression analysis were employed to drive relationships between high dietary diversity (≥5 food groups) and other independent variables as age, BMI, MUAC, CC, skinfold measurements, body density (D), % body fat, fat mass, fat free mass (kg) . It was found that MDD-W is positively correlated with independent variables (R2=0.702, Adjusted R2=0.721, Standard Error of Estimate=0.0312).

Keywords

• Chronic energy deficiency
• Energy consumption pattern
• Nutritional profiling
• RDA
• RDI