Abstract

While there is a decline in percentage of under nutrition among women in India but we also witness a rising trend in obesity across states. Thus the overall nutritional status of women is far from satisfactory and there is a long way to go to achieve the nutritional targets. This paper attempts to examine the dual burden of malnutrition and the trends in malnutrition among women. The latest government data NFHS 4 is analyzed to see if there is improvement in nutritional indicators among women and its possible factors. There is a huge variation in proportion of malnourishment among women across states. The relative performances of states in targeting malnutrition among women have been mixed. Undernourishment is higher among rural whereas overweight/obesity is more among urban woman. Data reveals an improvement in socio economic factors that are expected to be related to woman nutritional status over the period from 2005-06 to 2015-16. However the improvement is not large and leaves a scope for increase in access and reach out to basic health services and nutritional wellbeing of women.

Keywords: Under Nutrition, Over-Weight, Women, india