Much of India’s public conversation about women’s nutrition remains tethered to maternal health — “healthy pregnancies,” “safe deliveries,” “reducing maternal mortality.” These are vital goals, but this narrow framing reduces a girl’s worth to her reproductive role. It overlooks her present: the teenage student squinting at a blackboard because she lacks energy; the girl who drops out after puberty because menstruation becomes a burden in the absence of nutritious food or proper hygiene facilities; the teenager juggling homework with household duties while coping with chronic anaemia.
Girls deserve good nutrition not simply to become healthy mothers someday but because they are human beings whose dreams and abilities matter today.
Yet, nutrition in adolescence undeniably shapes future health. Anaemia during teenage years increases the likelihood of low birthweight babies, preterm deliveries, and complications during childbirth. Poor nutrition reinforces a cycle where a girl’s weakened body becomes the fragile foundation of the next generation’s health. In this way, the consequences of adolescent malnutrition spill far beyond the teen years — shaping entire communities.
Understanding What Girls Need and Why They Often Don’t Get It
The nutritional needs of adolescents are simple in theory, but complicated in practice.
Growing teenagers require:
- More energy, to fuel rapid physical and cognitive development
- Healthy fats, to support the brain and stabilise hormones
- Protein, to build stronger muscles and tissues
- Calcium, to strengthen bones during a critical growth phase
- Iron, to prevent anaemia in menstruating girls
- Zinc and folate, to support immunity, cell repair and emotional wellbeing
These are not luxury nutrients. They are basic requirements for a developing body.
But millions of girls do not get them — not because the foods are unavailable in India, but because of gender norms and household patterns that dictate who eats first, who eats most and who eats best. Girls too often fall at the bottom of this hierarchy. The consequences can last a lifetime.
Globally, micronutrient malnutrition among women is now recognised as a major public health crisis. In India, it intersects with entrenched gender inequality, lack of dietary autonomy and limited access to health services. A menstruating adolescent who is anaemic may miss school frequently; she may drop out earlier, narrow her job prospects and enter motherhood early and underprepared. Her child, in turn, inherits those vulnerabilities — a generational echo of nutritional neglect.
A System That Must Recognise Nutrition in Adolescence Early On
India has launched several strong national programmes — Poshan Abhiyaan, Anaemia Mukt Bharat and Swasth Nari Sashakt Parivar Abhiyaan — signalling political recognition of the problem. But intent alone cannot compensate for how deeply adolescent nutrition is siloed across ministries, departments and household expectations.
If India wants to unlock the potential of its adolescent girls, the approach must be broader, more integrated and more rooted in a “pre-motherhood lens.”
This means:
- Nutrition education embedded meaningfully in school curricula
- Lessons that link diet to health, menstrual hygiene, emotional wellbeing and future livelihoods
- Health systems that recognise girls as individuals with their own nutritional rights
- Social protection that ensures girls get adequate food even in households under strain
- Programmes that treat adolescent girls, women who are pregnant, lactating mothers and women outside the reproductive cycle as distinct groups — not one homogeneous category
Empowering adolescent girls to serve as peer educators can be transformative. When a teenage girl confidently speaks to classmates about iron supplements, healthy eating and menstrual health, she challenges norms from within her own community. Similarly, involving boys and men in reshaping expectations can shift household dynamics in ways that support girls’ wellbeing.
Measuring success, too, must go beyond haemoglobin levels. Attendance in school, confidence in the classroom, self-advocacy, healthier menstrual experiences — these reflect deeper, more sustainable improvements in girls’ lives.
Meeting Girls Where They Are
Civil society organisations play a critical role in bridging the distance between policy and lived experience. Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman is one example of how community-led interventions can strengthen government programmes. By supporting national campaigns like Poshan Abhiyaan and Anaemia Mukt Bharat, and by training ASHAs, ANMs and Anganwadi workers, Swabhiman strengthens service delivery at the last mile.
In many communities, it is these frontline workers — not distant officials — who help girls understand nutrition, navigate adolescence and access support. Their presence makes policies real. Their visits ensure that the system’s promises reach the girls who need them most.
Swabhiman’s model is practical and rooted in trust:
health camps, nutrition sessions, menstrual hygiene awareness, counselling and peer mobilisation. By bringing services directly into communities and building the confidence of teenage girls, it challenges the quiet barriers that have kept them invisible for too long.
A Future Built on Nourished Girls
India is at a pivotal moment. With one of the world’s largest adolescent populations, the country stands to gain — or lose — enormously from how it treats its girls today. Adolescent nutrition is not simply a health issue; it is an economic strategy, a gender equity imperative and a moral responsibility.
A nation that nourishes its girls nourishes its future.
When an adolescent girl has access to nutritious food, health information and the agency to make choices, the ripple effects extend across generations. Healthy girls become healthier women. Educated girls are more likely to secure dignified work. Empowered girls grow into mothers who understand nutrition not as a burden, but as a right.
The path to that future does not require reinventing India’s systems — only expanding their imagination. Girls are not future mothers alone. They are students, workers, leaders, decision-makers and citizens.
Recognising this is the first step. Nourishing them is the next.
