Cultural determinants of malnutrition in an urban slum

Abstract

This empirical study of pre-school children and their mothers in an urban slum in Bhubaneswar shows that enforced restriction in fuel use, due to either lack of purchasing power in the rainy season, when firewood use is problematic, curtails nutritional consumption. Consequently, protein food items are neglected in the diet. It was found also that mothers’ adherence to unsound food beliefs restricts not only their own food consumption, but the diet intake of their children as well. When adequate nutrition is difficult to provide to a mother because of poverty, which was common among the study's slum-dwellers, her adherence to unsound food beliefs restricts her diet intake further, exacerbates malnutrition, and increases the chances of pregnancy-related complications.