Need for Advocacy Around Eating Right: A Call for Reducing the Burden of Malnutrition—A Pilot Study

Adequate nutrition status is imperative for overall health and well-being, although numerous challenges impede its attainment. Various sociodemographic determinants significantly influence an individual's nutrition status, particularly those of women.

In this pilot study, the dietary patterns of 105 women were collected using the modified version of the FIGO nutrition checklist, along with their sociodemographic details to determine the enablers and barriers to their right nutrition. The women’s dietary patterns were categorized into optimum or suboptimum diets on the basis of their frequency of consumption of each food group. Descriptive analyses of checklist data were performed using STATA version 15.1.

The findings of the dietary data analysis reveal that financial constraints are not the primary barriers to achieving adequate nutrition for most of these women. Despite investing significantly in their food consumption, nearly half of the study population has a suboptimal diet with low consumption of protein-rich foods and green leafy vegetables.

We assert that proper advocacy for optimal nutrition and a shift toward healthier food choices is crucial in tackling the growing burden of malnutrition. Empowering them with the right information to ‘Eat Right’ is needed even across the educated and affording population.