Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Intergenerational Undernutrition

Additional nutrition is required during the period of adolescent as this is the period of rapid physical growth. The nutritional status of adolescent can be improved through distribution and practice of nutrition knowledge. Female adolescent nutrition is a predominantly significant tool as undernourished mothers produce low birth weight babies, who grow into undernourished children and adolescents; thus continues.
The mainstream group of rural adolescents lacked knowledge of the nutritional value of different food. Female adolescents should be the focus of nutrition interventions aimed at promoting nutrition knowledge and practices as their future roles in maintaining the health and nutrition of their family members, especially their children, is substantial. A feasible way to address undernourished adolescent may be community-based health and nutrition counseling backed by basic services to bring about changes in their nutrition knowledge and practices. Here the mothers need to be provided information on the significance of adolescent nutrition for healthy growth and survival because adolescents are not the sole decision makers and most of the time parents make decisions on their behalf.

Reference:
Health and Science Bulletin: Nutritional status, knowledge and practices of unmarried adolescent girls in rural Bangladesh. (2006, September). ICDDR,B Center for Health and Population Research, pp. Vol. 4, No. 3.
http://dspace.icddrb.org:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/4855/1/2006-ICDDRBHealthScienceBulletin-Vol4%283%29-English.pdf