Women's Agency, Nutrition, and Food Insecurity

Women's Agency, Nutrition, and Food Insecurity PDF Author: Pauley Tedoff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"BACKGROUND:Undernutrition is one of the leading causes of death among children worldwide, estimated to have contributed to nearly half of under-5 deaths in 2019. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence of moderate-to-severe food insecurity at 55.6% and the highest prevalence of under-5 chronic malnutrition, or stunting, at 42.9%. Limited research has been conducted on the relationship between women's agency and women's and children's nutrition and food security status in sub-Saharan Africa. OBJECTIVES:The present thesis consists of three objectives: (I) develop context-specific models of women's agency; (II) estimate the association between women's agency and (a) women's and children's nutrition and (b) women's food insecurity status; and (III) estimate the association between women's and men's concordance on notions of women's agency and (a) women's and men's dietary diversity and (b) women's food insecurity status. METHODS:The data used for this thesis comes from a cross-sectional survey in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. In total, 1,261 households in Ethiopia, 708 households in Malawi, 735 households in Zambia, and 1,262 households in Mozambique were surveyed. I used confirmatory factor analysis to build country-specific measurement models for women's agency. I estimated agency scores that were used to model the association between women's agency and women's and children's nutrition and food security. For the third objective, I estimated the association between couples' agreement on domains of women's agency and women's and men's dietary diversity and women's food insecurity experience. RESULTS:The best-fitting models estimated for women's agency in Objective I were different for each country; and domains of agency were not always correlated with conventional measures of women's empowerment. The analyses conducted for Objective II yielded mixed results for the association between women's agency and women's and children's nutrition and food security outcomes. For women's nutrition, the strongest associations were found between women's decision-making and women's nutrition status, with the relationship being positive in some instances and negative in others. Decision-making was associated with an increased risk of children's malnutrition in some countries and a decreased risk in others. While agency was consistently associated with increased dietary diversity in women and children, results for the association between women's agency and women's food insecurity experience were mixed. In my third study, domestic partner concordance on gender-based attitudes improved dietary diversity for women and men in three of the four countries, but was not associated with women's food insecurity experience. Lastly, partner concordance on women's decision-making was differentially associated with women's and men's dietary diversity and women's food insecurity experience both within and between countries. CONCLUSIONS:The findings of my study support a shift away from standardized measures of women's agency towards more nuanced, context-specific and, most importantly, culturally valid alternatives. Results for the association between domains of women's agency and measures of nutrition, dietary diversity, and food insecurity were mixed. The variation of findings--between countries and between different domains of agency in a single country--supports the notion that a given construct of agency can represent distinct phenomena in different settings. Further, my results support the treatment of anthropometry, dietary diversity, and food insecurity as separate, yet interrelated facets of nutrition. Future research would benefit from a more in-depth understanding of how women internalize theoretical constructs of agency and, subsequently, how assertions of agency impact women's and children's nutrition and food security status"--

Women's Agency, Nutrition, and Food Insecurity

Women's Agency, Nutrition, and Food Insecurity PDF Author: Pauley Tedoff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"BACKGROUND:Undernutrition is one of the leading causes of death among children worldwide, estimated to have contributed to nearly half of under-5 deaths in 2019. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence of moderate-to-severe food insecurity at 55.6% and the highest prevalence of under-5 chronic malnutrition, or stunting, at 42.9%. Limited research has been conducted on the relationship between women's agency and women's and children's nutrition and food security status in sub-Saharan Africa. OBJECTIVES:The present thesis consists of three objectives: (I) develop context-specific models of women's agency; (II) estimate the association between women's agency and (a) women's and children's nutrition and (b) women's food insecurity status; and (III) estimate the association between women's and men's concordance on notions of women's agency and (a) women's and men's dietary diversity and (b) women's food insecurity status. METHODS:The data used for this thesis comes from a cross-sectional survey in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. In total, 1,261 households in Ethiopia, 708 households in Malawi, 735 households in Zambia, and 1,262 households in Mozambique were surveyed. I used confirmatory factor analysis to build country-specific measurement models for women's agency. I estimated agency scores that were used to model the association between women's agency and women's and children's nutrition and food security. For the third objective, I estimated the association between couples' agreement on domains of women's agency and women's and men's dietary diversity and women's food insecurity experience. RESULTS:The best-fitting models estimated for women's agency in Objective I were different for each country; and domains of agency were not always correlated with conventional measures of women's empowerment. The analyses conducted for Objective II yielded mixed results for the association between women's agency and women's and children's nutrition and food security outcomes. For women's nutrition, the strongest associations were found between women's decision-making and women's nutrition status, with the relationship being positive in some instances and negative in others. Decision-making was associated with an increased risk of children's malnutrition in some countries and a decreased risk in others. While agency was consistently associated with increased dietary diversity in women and children, results for the association between women's agency and women's food insecurity experience were mixed. In my third study, domestic partner concordance on gender-based attitudes improved dietary diversity for women and men in three of the four countries, but was not associated with women's food insecurity experience. Lastly, partner concordance on women's decision-making was differentially associated with women's and men's dietary diversity and women's food insecurity experience both within and between countries. CONCLUSIONS:The findings of my study support a shift away from standardized measures of women's agency towards more nuanced, context-specific and, most importantly, culturally valid alternatives. Results for the association between domains of women's agency and measures of nutrition, dietary diversity, and food insecurity were mixed. The variation of findings--between countries and between different domains of agency in a single country--supports the notion that a given construct of agency can represent distinct phenomena in different settings. Further, my results support the treatment of anthropometry, dietary diversity, and food insecurity as separate, yet interrelated facets of nutrition. Future research would benefit from a more in-depth understanding of how women internalize theoretical constructs of agency and, subsequently, how assertions of agency impact women's and children's nutrition and food security status"--

Women Redefining the Experience of Food Insecurity

Women Redefining the Experience of Food Insecurity PDF Author: Janet Page-Reeves
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739185276
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Women Redefining the Experience of Food Insecurity: Life Off the Edge of the Table is about understanding the relationship between food insecurity and women’s agency. The contributors explore both the structural constraints that limit what and how much people eat, and the myriad ways that women creatively and strategically re-structure their own fields of action in relation to food, demonstrating that the nature of food insecurity is multi-dimensional. The chapters portray how women develop strategies to make it possible to have food in the cupboard and on the table to be able to feed their families. Exploring these themes, this book offers a lens for thinking about the food system that incorporates women as agentive actors and links women’s everyday food-related activities with ideas about food justice, food sovereignty, and food citizenship. Taken together, the chapters provide a unique perspective on how we can think broadly about the issue of food insecurity in relation to gender, culture, inequality, poverty, and health disparity. By problematizing the mundane world of how women procure and prepare food in a context of scarcity, this book reveals dynamics, relationships and experiences that would otherwise go unremarked. Normally under the radar, these processes are embedded in power relations that demand analysis, and demonstrate strategic individual action that requires recognition. All of the chapters provide a counter to caricatured notions that the choices women make are irresponsible or ignorant, or that the lives of women from low-income, low-wealth communities are predicated on impotence and weakness. Yet, the authors do not romanticize women as uniformly resilient or consistently heroic. Instead, they explore the contradictions inherent in the ways that marginalized, seemingly powerless women ignore, resist, embrace and challenge hegemonic, patriarchal systems through their relationship with food.

Food Insecurity and Hunger in the United States

Food Insecurity and Hunger in the United States PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309180368
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
The United States is viewed by the world as a country with plenty of food, yet not all households in America are food secure, meaning access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. A proportion of the population experiences food insecurity at some time in a given year because of food deprivation and lack of access to food due to economic resource constraints. Still, food insecurity in the United States is not of the same intensity as in some developing countries. Since 1995 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has annually published statistics on the extent of food insecurity and food insecurity with hunger in U.S. households. These estimates are based on a survey measure developed by the U.S. Food Security Measurement Project, an ongoing collaboration among federal agencies, academic researchers, and private organizations. USDA requested the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies to convene a panel of experts to undertake a two-year study in two phases to review at this 10-year mark the concepts and methodology for measuring food insecurity and hunger and the uses of the measure. In Phase 2 of the study the panel was to consider in more depth the issues raised in Phase 1 relating to the concepts and methods used to measure food security and make recommendations as appropriate. The Committee on National Statistics appointed a panel of 10 experts to examine the above issues. In order to provide timely guidance to USDA, the panel issued an interim Phase 1 report, Measuring Food Insecurity and Hunger: Phase 1 Report. That report presented the panel's preliminary assessments of the food security concepts and definitions; the appropriateness of identifying hunger as a severe range of food insecurity in such a survey-based measurement method; questions for measuring these concepts; and the appropriateness of a household survey for regularly monitoring food security in the U.S. population. It provided interim guidance for the continued production of the food security estimates. This final report primarily focuses on the Phase 2 charge. The major findings and conclusions based on the panel's review and deliberations are summarized.

The Unending Hunger

The Unending Hunger PDF Author: Megan A. Carney
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520959671
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Based on ethnographic fieldwork from Santa Barbara, California, this book sheds light on the ways that food insecurity prevails in women’s experiences of migration from Mexico and Central America to the United States. As women grapple with the pervasive conditions of poverty that hinder efforts at getting enough to eat, they find few options for alleviating the various forms of suffering that accompany food insecurity. Examining how constraints on eating and feeding translate to the uneven distribution of life chances across borders and how "food security" comes to dominate national policy in the United States, this book argues for understanding women’s relations to these processes as inherently biopolitical.

Are Women Moving?

Are Women Moving? PDF Author: Arely B. Lozano-Baugh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Body image
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description
Food insecurity or low-access to good quality, affordable foods affects minority women and children disproportionately (Herndon, 2014; Ivers & Cullen, 2011; Lee, 2012; Wigg Dammann & Smith, 2009). Linked to the rise in nutritionrelated and other health problems afflicting these populations (e.g., malnutrition, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure among others) (Azarbad & Gonder- Frederick, 2010; Bove & Olson, 2006; Larson, Story, & Nelson, 2009), this issue has been gaining some attention. Still, programs combating weight and “weightrelated disorders” generally focus on individualistic solutions (Orbach, Bodies 2009)—such as increasing daily exercise and vilifying certain diets. Dismissing important spatial and systematic aspects, these approaches rather perpetuate problematic socio-political, economic, medical, and ideological biases informing our understanding of poverty, health and food. This project offers and alternative perspective. Most importantly, it 1) scrutinizes sexist, classist and racist constructs across the literature on overweight, obesity, poverty, and health; 2) examines the relationship between our food system, the growth in nutrition-related diseases, and the intersections of gender, race, and class within food insecure communities; and 3) analyzes interview data looking for important and resonating themes that could guide the development of more efficient local food access strategies. As this study shows, these women’s experiences, knowledge, and strategies have the potential of, not only helping eradicate food insecurity across South Florida, but also combating a great number of the nutrition-related health problems afflicting these populations.

Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children

Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children PDF Author: United States. Food and Nutrition Service. Supplemental Food Program Division
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Food relief
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description


Strategies for Expanding the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Participation

Strategies for Expanding the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Participation PDF Author: United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Hunger
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Children
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
Abstract: This report is based on the responses to the Select Committee on Hunger's questionnaire and a review of information currently available on WIC Program operation. Topics discussed are program participation rates and funding, barriers to participation, innovations implemented to expand participation, and recommendations for improvement and expansion of the program service.

Women, Food Security and Nutrition

Women, Food Security and Nutrition PDF Author: K. Padma
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788183877169
Category : Food security
Languages : en
Pages : 739

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Book Description


Gender, Nutrition, and the Human Right to Adequate Food

Gender, Nutrition, and the Human Right to Adequate Food PDF Author: Anne C. Bellows
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134738668
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
This book introduces the human right to adequate food and nutrition as evolving concept and identifies two structural "disconnects" fueling food insecurity for a billion people, and disproportionally affecting women, children, and rural food producers: the separation of women’s rights from their right to adequate food and nutrition, and the fragmented attention to food as commodity and the medicalization of nutritional health. Three conditions arising from these disconnects are discussed: structural violence and discrimination frustrating the realization of women’s human rights, as well as their private and public contributions to food and nutrition security for all; many women’s experience of their and their children’s simultaneously independent and intertwined subjectivities during pregnancy and breastfeeding being poorly understood in human rights law and abused by poorly-regulated food and nutrition industry marketing practices; and the neoliberal economic system’s interference both with the autonomy and self-determination of women and their communities and with the strengthening of sustainable diets based on democratically governed local food systems. The book calls for a social movement-led reconceptualization of the right to adequate food toward incorporating gender, women’s rights, and nutrition, based on the food sovereignty framework.

Beyond the Kitchen Table

Beyond the Kitchen Table PDF Author: Priscilla McCutcheon
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146967596X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Over the last decade, there has been an increasing amount of scholarship focused on race and food inequity. Much of this research is focused on the United States and its densely populated urban centers. Looking deeply into Black women's roles—economically, environmentally, and socially—in food and agriculture systems in the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States, the contributors address the ways Black women, both now and in the past, have used food as a part of community building and sustenance. They also examine matrilineal food-based education; the importance of Black women's social, cultural, and familial networks in addressing nutrition and food insecurity; the ways gender intersects with class and race globally when thinking about food; and how women-led science and technology initiatives can be used to create healthier and more just food systems. Contributors include Agnes Atia Apusigah, Neela Badrie, Kenia-Rosa Campo, Dara Cooper, Kelsey Emard, Claudia J. Ford, Hanna Garth, Shelene Gomes, Veronica Gordon, Wendy-Ann Isaac, Lydia Kwoyiga, Gloria Sanders McCutcheon, Eveline M. F. W. Sawadogo/Compaore, Ashante M. Reese, Sakiko Shiratori, shakara tyler, and Marquitta Webb.