Why Women’s Decision-Making Affects Family’s Nutrition

John C. Maxwell may be up to something when he said, “It is our decision, not our conditions that determine our quality of life” and for nutrition, women’s decisions really matter.

On our third installment of women and nutrition, we discuss how women’s decision-making can affect their family’s health and nutrition status. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests improving female empowerment to improve better maternal and child malnutrition. Numerous social influences such as food taboos and cultural health beliefs have an impact on health-seeking behavior and food and nutrition security thus playing a huge role in both maternal and child malnutrition, but in the end, it is the stakeholders’ decision to fight malnutrition within their household that gives way to a plausible improvement.

A mother’s decision to access health services is for their child’s well-being. Without proper knowledge and information, women will not be able to make the right decision thus affecting their children’s health.

It is important to empower women for better health-seeking behaviors including better maternal and reproductive health to ensure better child-rearing in the future. Because educated and well-empowered women have more confidence in making decisions, they are more receptive to public health messaging and are able to make healthier food choices for the family.

To make the right decisions when it comes to health and nutrition, the community has the right to be given appropriate and timely information and counseling to choose the most appropriate action in preventing and addressing malnutrition.

The Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) includes nutrition-specific interventions that work on forming positive socio-behavioral changes, especially in women to prevent malnutrition.

The road to women empowerment and behavior change may be long and tedious but the National Nutrition Council Region VII challenges local nutrition workers to start one woman at a time through IYCF counseling and building a network of strong, responsible, and nutrition-literate women for a better Central Visayas. (NO III Nasudi G. Soluta, RND)