There are at least two reasons why the nutritional status of women should be distinguished from that of men. The first is that a woman’s nutritional status has a direct impact on her children. Better-nourished mothers lead to better-nourished infants by virtue of prepregnancy nutritional status, weight gain during pregnancy, and diet during lactation. This approach to women’s nutritional status encapsulates the traditional “breeder and feeder” view.

The second reason is that women exhibit certain nurturing and allocative behaviors, reflecting societal roles, that enhance the food and nutrition security of the entire household and of children in particular. This behavior is most commonly demonstrated in the way women allocate their time and their own income and is particularly visible in certain types of female-headed households. Through both the direct and indirect links, women are the “gatekeepers” of the food and nutritional status of their household’s members.

The objective of this chapter is to summarize the literature underlying such links between gender and nutrition within a conceptual framework. Eight main links are identified and discussed in turn, although it should be recognized that this organization is merely a convenient representation of the issues, and that there is considerable overlap across links.

Link 1. Mother’s Nutritional Status, Infant and Child Health, and Supplementary Feeding

Birth weight is the single most important determinant of neonatal and infant mortality and of child growth to the age of 7. A number of maternal factors have been shown to be significant determinants of birth weight; most important is the mother’s progravid weight and weight gain during pregnancy. Women entering pregnancy with a low preconception weight are several times more likely to produce a low-birth-weight baby (one less than 2,500 grams). Mean birth weight increases, and the incidence of low birth weight decreases, as the preconception weight of the mother increases (Lechtig et al. 1975).