Religious leaders influencing nutrition behavior in rural households

Summary:

The USAID Feed the Future Bangladesh Livestock Production for Improved Nutrition activity is working to improve overall nutritional status of households through a social and behavior change communication (SBCC) campaign that triggers nutrition behavior change. In rural households of Bangladesh, women often fail to achieve the required nutritional status due to gender inequality and food discrimination. They suffer from malnutrition due to lack of access to critical agricultural resources and poor eating habits. In order to achieve positive nutrition results for women, it is critical to engage men to empower women in the households. In rural Bangladesh, the religious leaders in the communities are important opinion leaders and have a strong influence on men. As religion impacts all aspects of rural households, the activity leveraged the religious leaders as communication vehicles to influence nutrition outcome for women and enhance their decision making skills in the household.

Background/Objectives:

Food insecurity and malnutrition is prevalent in rural Bangladesh, especially for women as gender norms prevent them from achieving the required nutritional status in the households. Gender inequality and food discrimination heavily impact women's nutritional well-being. In patriarchal societies of rural Bangladesh, women suffer from malnutrition due to lack of access to critical agricultural resources and eating habits such as eating after the male counterparts, not eating as much as the men or consuming the left over. In order to improve nutritional behavior of women, it is critical to engage men to empower women in the households.

Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:

While low-cost messaging options may improve nutrition knowledge, study conducted by the activity suggested that it does not change behavior. In order to impact the overall household nutrition behavior, the activity works with religious leaders of the communities to influence the men in the households. The religious leaders are integral part of the communities and have immense influence on the communities, in particular on men. They possess the credibility to promote healthy behaviors and have access to a platform that connects them with a regular captive audience. The activity primarily facilitates workshops with local religious leaders, community leaders and mosque committee members. The leaders then reflect on nutrition messages during weekly prayers in farming communities and distribute leaflets to disseminate gender and women's empowerment messages. The leaders also communicate associated religious messages around the importance of balanced diet for every household member to trigger nutrition behavior change.

Results/Lessons Learned:

Till now, the activity has arranged 226 religious leaders workshops for 5,128 religious and community leaders who disseminated nutrition, gender and women's empowerment messages and discussed the health benefits of consuming milk and meat for all household members. The activity's intervention with religious leaders proved beneficial and has highly contributed towards increasing consumption at households and improving women's decision-making power. Percentage of households with regular meat consumption increased from 13% to 49% and regular milk consumption increased from 29% to 66% in four years. By involving the religious leaders, the activity was able to more widely spread nutrition messages on dairy and meat consumption, particularly to men, in order to empower women and ensure improved nutrition for all members of the families regardless of gender and age.

Discussion/Implications for the Field:

In a developing country such as Bangladesh, where religion permeates every aspect of rural household, religious leaders are effective agents in promoting critical changes in the households. Their power of persuasion and expertise in religious matters enable them to instill health-related actions in a person's values, influencing positive behavior change in the communities.

Abstract submitted by:

Lamia Anwar Shama - ACDI/VOCA (Agricultural Cooperative Development International/Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance) 
Muhammad Nurul Amin Siddiquee - ACDI/VOCA