Mothers nutritional status in an impoverished nation: Evidence from rural Bangladesh

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess and to identify the factors associated with nutritional status of rural mothers in Bangladesh. Methodology: Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey data 2004 for last five years (N=3329) were used for this study. Women's nutritional status was defined in terms of Body Mass Index (BMI\wt in kg/ht in m2). Descriptive and multivariate logistic regression methods were employed in analyzing the data. Results: It was observed that although maximum numbers of rural mothers were nourished (56.3%) a large portion of them was acute malnourished (43.7%) and the mean height for all ages of women is 150.43 centimeters. This study elucidates that maternal weight was consistently lower for older women and women with higher fertility. Bivariate analysis shows that mothers whose mobility about own health care was not restricted are in the higher percentage of normal weight (57.9%) also the percentage of having normal weight is higher among mothers who gave their first birth at middle age ("e30 years) than among the mothers give their first birth during adolescence and women with higher age group. Multivariate logistic regression analysis shows that women who worked for cash were two-and-a-half times more probability of becoming nourished than among women did not work for cash. Women whose husbands had a lower status job were suffering more from acutely malnutrition. It was also found that women with lower household assets index have the highest rates of malnutrition. The other main contributing factors likely to affect nutritional status of women were respondent's education, husband's education, vitamin A and iron supplementation. Conclusions: The results indicate several policy options: (a) dietary intake needs to be improved for older higher fertility women; (b) it is equally important that education for women and increased cash incomes is emphasized to bring about a lasting impact on the overall health and nutritional condition of women; (c) there is need to ensure availability of iron and vitamin A supplements; (d) much more attention needs to be placed on reducing household poverty and increasing rural nutritional resources; (e) greater efforts should be made to increase availability and access to food by households and by women. Poor rural households need access to skills training for homestead gardening, income-generating activities and credit which will allow them to purchase or grow more food.