Importance of women’s empowerment in Guatemalan child nutrition
Keywords:
Stunting, Height for age, demographic and health surveys, ethnicity, food and nutrition securityAbstract
Guatemala is one of the countries with the highest levels of several stunting in the world, being particularly higher among the indigenous population This has a direct impact on the economic development of the country. Among the determining factors in child nutrition, one of the most prominent is the status of the woman, since the quality of childcare depends on them, which directly affects their nutritional status. Therefore, the status of women is a key element in combating malnutrition at the national level. The present study aimed to determine if there is a relationship between the women’s empowerment and the nutritional status of children in Guatemala. The statistical program “Statistical Software for Data Science (Stata version 17.0®”) was used to create regression models that explain the relationship between these factors to serve as a tool to guide decision-making in development projects in Guatemala. For this study, data from the National Maternal and Child Health Survey 2014-2015 were used, using the standards established by the World Health Organization as response variables. The results showed that the women´s empowerment is positively associated with child nutritional status, while ethnicity is negatively associated. Therefore, the status of women is a key element to combat malnutrition at the national level but must be addressed and differentiated according to the cultural context.
Downloads
References
Al-Zangabila, K., Poudel Adhikari, S., Wang, Q., Sunil, T. S., Rozelle, S., & Zhou, H. (2021). Alarmingly high malnutrition in childhood and its associated factors: A study among children under 5 in Yemen. Medicine, 100(5), e24419. https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000024419
Bhutta, Z. A., Das, J. K., Rizvi, A., Gaffey, M. F., Walker, N., Horton, S., Webb, P., Lartey, A., & Black, R. E. (2013). Evidence-based interventions for improvement of maternal and child nutrition: What can be done and at what cost? Lancet, 382(9890), 452–477. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60996-4
Demographic and Health Surveys. (2021). Who we are? Demographic and Health Survey. https://dhsprogram.com/methodology/survey/survey-display-440.cfm
Fondo de las Naciones Unidas para la Infancia. (2013). Mejorar la nutrición infantil: El imperativo para el progreso mundial que es posible de lograr. UNICEF.
Fondo de las Naciones Unidas para la Infancia. (2019a). Cuidado infantil y familiar trabajadoras: ¿Una nueva oportunidad o un vínculo perdido? UNICEF.
Fondo de las Naciones Unidas para la Infancia. (2019b). Estado mundial de la infancia 2019: Niños, alimentos y nutrición: crecer bien en un mundo de transformación. UNICEF.
Food and Agriculture Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Pan American Health Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund, & World Food Programme. (2023). Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition – Latin America and the Caribbean 2022: Towards improving affordability of healthy diets. Santuago. FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc3859en
Food and Agriculture Organization. (2021). El estado de la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición en el mundo 2021: Transformación de los sistemas alimentarios en aras de la seguridad alimentaria, una nutrición mejorada y dietas asequibles y saludables para todos. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb4474es
Ghimire, U., Manandhar, J., Gautam, A., Tuladhar, S., Prasai, Y., & Gebreselassie, T. (2019). Inequalities in health outcomes and access to services by caste/ethnicity, province, and wealth quintile in Nepal (DHS Further Analysis Reports núm. 117). Nepal. Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-fa117-further-analysis.cfm
Groeneveld, I. F., Solomons, N. W., & Doak, C. M. (2007). Nutritional status of urban schoolchildren of high and low socioeconomic status in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Pan American Journal of Public Health, 22(3), 169–177. https://doi.org/10.1590/s1020-49892007000800003
Hanmer, L., & Klugman, J. (2016). Exploring Women's Agency and Empowerment in Developing Countries: Where do we stand? Feminist Economics, 22(1), 237–263. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2015.1091087
Instituto de Nutrición de Centroamérica y Panamá. (2013). The Lancet serie 2013 sobre nutrición materno infantil: Nutrición y obesidad materno-infantil en paises de bajos y medianos ingresos. Guatemala. Instituto de Nutrición de Centro América y Panamá. www.incap.int/index.php/es/lancet
International Food Policy Research Institute. (2016). Global Nutrition Report 2016: From Promise to Impact: Ending Malnutrition by 2030. International Food Policy Research Institute. http://dx.doi.org/10.2499/9780896295841
Jerez Sarceño, C. B. (2022). Importancia del empoderamiento de la mujer en la nutrición infantil: Estudio de caso Guatemala [Tesis de maestría, Escuela Agrícola Panamericana, Zamorano]. Biblioteca Wilson Popenoe. https://bdigital.zamorano.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/9527b769-ad8b-4b54-9ee8-91e8fa9b0c7a/content/hdl.handle.net/11036/7211.2
Kabeer, N. (1999). Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment. Development and Change, 30, 435–464. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.00125
Kabeer, N. (2001). Conflicts Over Credit: Re-Evaluating the Empowerment Potential of Loans to Women in Rural Bangladesh. World Development, 29(1), 63–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(00)00081-4
Khan, R. E. A., & Raza, M. A. (2014). Child malnutrition in developing economies: A case study of Bangladesh. Quality & Quantity, 48(3), 1389–1408. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-013-9842-4
Ministerio de Salud Pública y Asistencia Social, Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (2017). Encuesta Nacional de Salud Materno Infantil 2014-2015: Informe final.
Ngoc Hien, N., & Ngoc Hoa, N. (2009). Nutritional Status and Determinants of Malnutrition in Children under Three Years of Age in Nghean, Vietnam. Pakistan Journal of Nutrition, 8(7), 958–964. https://doi.org/10.3923/pjn.2009.958.964
Njuki, J., Parkins, J., Kaler, A., & Ahmed, S. (2016). Gender, Agriculture, and Food Security: Where Are We? En J. Njuki, J. Parkins y A. Kaler (Eds.), Transforming gender and food security in the global South (pp. 1–18). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315564111
Organización Mundial de la Salud. (2006). WHO child growth standards: Length height-for-age, weight-for-age, weight-for-length, weight-for-height and body mass index-for-age: methods and development. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/924154693X
Paul, J. P. (2019). A Context Specific Framework for Measurement of Empowerment Attained from Poverty Reduction Intervention. Asian Review of Social Sciences, 8(S1), 88–95. https://doi.org/10.51983/arss-2019.8.S1.1486
Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo. (2022). Informe Nacional de Desarrollo Humano - Desafíos y oportunidades para Guatemala, hacia una agenda de futuro: La celeridad del cambio, una mirada territorial del desarrollo humano 2002 - 2019.
Van de Poel, E., Hosseinpoor, A. R., Speybroeck, N., van Ourti, T., & Vega, J. (2008). Socioeconomic inequality in malnutrition in developing countries. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 86(4), 282–291. https://doi.org/10.2471/blt.07.044800.
WHO. (2006). WHO child growth standards: Length height-for-age, weight-for-age, weight-for-length, weight-for-height and body mass index-for-age: Methods and development. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/924154693X
World Food Programme. (2023). WFP Guatemala, Country Brief: September 2023. World Food Programme.
World Health Organization. (2009). WHO child growth standards and the identification of severe acute malnutrition in infants and children. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241598163
World Health Organization. (2021). Levels and trends in child malnutrition: Key findings of the 2021 edition of the join child malnutrition estimates. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240025257
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Catheryne Jerez Sarceño, Arie Sanders, Sara Bonilla-Anariba, David Ader
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
El autor que publique en esta revista acepta las siguientes condiciones:
- El autor otorga a la Dirección General de Investigación el derecho de editar, reproducir, publicar y difundir el manuscrito en forma impresa o electrónica en la revista Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades.
- La Direción General de Investigación otorgará a la obra una licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional.
