Nutrition for Girls: Multiple determinants for improved outcomes

This document aims to shed light on the different dimensions that have an impact on adolescent nutrition, in order to break the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition. Good nutrition is essential for teenagers, especially for girls who will be mothers of the next generation to come.

In 2030 there will be 129 million children with growth problems due to malnutrition, most often caused by the malnutrition of their teenage mothers. The intergenerational cycle of malnutrition depends on a series of causes that, to be resolved, must be tackled in an integrated manner: poverty, socio-cultural norms, education, lack of drinking water, access to public health systems and resources, which render economically independent and aware young women, thus safeguarding them also from the perspective of early marriages.

Supporting adolescents is therefore essential to positively influence the nutrition of future generations to reduce cases of growth arrest by 2025 by 20% and eliminate all forms of malnutrition by 2030, as envisaged by the Sustainable Development Goal 2 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.