TOPIC 3
A platform for positive nutrition providing the linkages, needs, and points of communication between food production, distribution, consumption, and health outcomes.
Tanya Seshadri
Director - Community Health, Tribal Health Resource Centre, VGKK; Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK)
Ananya Mekapati
Manager; Research Innovation Circle Hyderabad (RICH)
Srajesh Gupta
Program Associate, Secretariat; National Coalition for Natural Farming (NCNF)
MOTIVATION
Poor diets contribute to all forms of malnutrition. There are many causes of poor diets, including high prices of nutritious foods, under valuation of indigenous and local nutritious foods, structural determinants such as poverty, time constraints, as well as limited awareness of how to put healthy diets together in line with taste and cultural preferences. Low birth weight caused by malnutrition further predisposes an individual not just to undernutrition in childhood but also noncommunicable diseases later in adulthood. Living environments including sanitation, water, housing quality, electricity, and other factors are also associated with nutritional status because they affect infections and illnesses which lead to nutrient losses from the body. All these issues have led to population-level child undernutrition including wasting and stunting, underweight mothers, anaemia, obesity and noncommunicable diseases in the general population.
AIMS
1. Using case studies and existing evidence, identify the stakeholders, parameters, drivers, and blocks underlying current and past nutritional interventions in rural communities.
2. Map exchange pathways, points of inflection and structural roadblocks underlying effective interventions for nutrition in selected rural districts.
3. Provide insights on data needs to identify and assess intervention strategies.
4. Create an adaptive digital platform that can illustrate linkages, needs, and points of communication between food production, distribution, consumption, and health outcomes for decision makers and implementers in rural districts to identify intervention strategies that support positive nutrition.
IMPACT
1. Improved nutritional interventions will improve the resilience of communities.
2. Improved diets will improve resistance to diseases and other health issues.
3. Can improve health and development of infants and children.
4. Improved diversity of crops can increase diversity of local diets and ecologically smart food systems.
5. Can provide a repository and platform for nutritional strategies and food products.
6. Can provide a mechanism for scaling localized strategies to national scales.
7. Can increase food security, ecosystems health, and climate resilience of food production systems.
8. Provides interdisciplinary and cross-platform insights for knowledge of food system.
Tanya Seshadri
Director - Community Health, Tribal Health Resource Centre, VGKK; Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK)
Ananya Mekapati
Manager; Research Innovation Circle Hyderabad (RICH)
Srajesh Gupta
Program Associate, Secretariat; National Coalition for Natural Farming (NCNF)
TOPIC 3