While poverty is often seen as the primary predictor of malnourishment, it fails to account for the gender-specific disparities in access to nutrition that have steadily led to the development of chronic nutritional deficiencies among women and girls in the country.

According to Dr Basmaa Ali, Clinical Instructor in Internal Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, malnourishment, particularly iron-deficiency anaemia is a huge problem in Pakistan since it causes the national IQ score among girls to drop by three to five points, which is 5 per cent of our GDP.

“Growing up if you have anaemia, your brain does not develop since haemoglobin is needed to supply oxygen. Hence, the affected women and girls are unable to develop the intellectual prowess needed to excel in the public sphere,” revealed Dr Ali.

On the other hand, Dr Nighat Khan, General Secretary at the Women Care Foundation of Pakistan highlighted the fact that nutritional deficiencies not only impacted the development of female adolescents but also had dire consequences for their future children.

“Girls who suffer from severe malnutrition face various medical complications during pregnancy. Even when they give birth successfully, the child born is underweight and is susceptible to acquiring various diseases,” claimed Dr Khan.

“Approximately 50 per cent of women in urban areas and 75 per cent of women in rural areas are suffering from some nutritional deficiency especially of iron and calcium,” explained Professor Dr Jahan Ara Hassan, Professor of Gynaecology at the Dow University of Health Sciences.

Whilst acknowledging the hazards of malnourishment, Dr Ali felt that genotypic variations among different populations could partially explain the staggering figures highlighting anaemia in Pakistan.

“We rely on Western medical guidelines, which label women with a haemoglobin level of 11g/dL as anaemic, even though these levels are perhaps normal in our local female population. The average haemoglobin levels among women in our country are genetically lower,” noted Dr Ali.

While it could be said that the figures on malnourishment might be exaggerated, the interplay of various gendered social factors hindering access to nutrition for women and girls perpetuates a vicious cycle of malnourishment, which hampers the quality of life of