Impacting Nutrition of Adolescent Girls

Nutrition is foundational to adolescent girls' health, development and play and in order to sustainably improve nutrition, the cultural and social context must be addressed through engaging with families and communities.

We know that malnutrition passes from one generation to the next; however, we also know that there are two key windows of opportunity to stop the cycle.  One is the 1,000 days from conception to the child’s second birthday, and the second is during adolescence, just before the girls' growth spurt.  Adolescent girls can play a pivotal role in breaking the cycle of malnutrition – the irony is that girls and their families are often left out of programs and the wider community in which girls are being born and raised is not engaged in the programs that could ensure the best start to life.

In Vietnam, World Vision has implemented Nutrition Clubs, which provide a sustainable, community-based forum for multi-sectoral action to address childhood undernutrition.  The approach integrates improvements in food security, smallholder agriculture, economic development, health and WASH under the over-arching goal of reducing child malnutrition – working with the government departments of Health and Agriculture. The Nutrition Clubs are well received, with 70% to 80% of target participants joining in the activities.

Learn more about World Vision's Nutrition Clubs in Vietnam