Food security and proper nutrition are essential elements for the good health and wellbeing of individuals and communities. Proper nutrition increases productivity and subsequently helps lift families out of poverty. However, an estimated 800 million people are chronically malnourished across the world. Globally, more than 3 million children die each year due to illnesses caused by malnutrition.

One factor that affects the vulnerability of many is related to another, often separately addressed health sector: reproductive health and family planning.

A new “ENGAGE” presentation by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), designed to explain complex concepts to busy policymakers, addresses the significant yet often overlooked role that expanding access to voluntary family planning can play in improving household and community level food security and nutrition.

A Matter of When, and Whether or Not

Due to changing preferences in family sizes, most women and couples desire fewer children than their parents, PRB explains. However, the infrastructure to disperse family planning doesn’t exist or hasn’t kept up with demand in many developing countries. As a result, many families have more children than they desire. For example, in Malawi, couples on average would like to have four children but actually have six.

Approximately 225 million women worldwide have an unmet need for family planning which means they “would like to either delay or avoid a pregnancy but are not using modern methods of contraception,” says PRB. Almost 4 out of 10 pregnancies globally are unplanned.

The majority of women with unmet need are marginalized in other ways and lack access to sufficient nutrient-rich foods. This can create a vicious cycle wherein undernourished mothers give birth to undernourished children, some of whom go on to become undernourished mothers themselves.

Another important factor that impacts the nutritional health of an infant through adulthood is how soon the baby is conceived after the mother’s last pregnancy. International guidelines suggest women should wait at least two years after a pregnancy to give birth again, as infants born too soon after a previous birth are more likely to experience low birth weight and stunted growth, explains PRB. Giving mothers the ability to space their births also allows them more time and energy to rest and develop good feeding practices during the vital first two years of a child’s life.

Access to contraceptives, therefore, plays an important role in allowing mothers and couples to choose when to have children to maximize their food resources. Broader access also allows adolescent girls, who among all mothers are the most susceptible to malnutrition, to delay pregnancy until after they have matured and their bodies no longer require as many nutrients to help them grow.

The Macro Picture

At the community level, rapid population growth is one of several factors that can contribute to food insecurity and poor nutrition. Most of the world is actually at or below replacement level, yet pockets of rapid growth – where, not incidentally, unmet need for family planning is highest – mean 2.5 billion additional people are expected to be added to world population by 2050. Combined with increasing levels of consumption, such growth is expected to drive up food prices, especially for nutrient-rich, non-junk foods.

In some places agricultural plots have been shrinking as land is divided and distributed among successive generations. For example, in Nigeria, it is projected that by 2025, there will be one fifth the amount of land available per capita as in 1960.  Meeting more of the natural demand for family planning in these areas can slow the rate of growth, alleviating strain on natural resources.

As well, in most parts of the world, the majority of agricultural work is done by women. If more of these women are able to have the number of children they want at the right time, there are productivity gains to be had.

The links between reproductive health and food security and nutrition are strong, says PRB. The two development objectives are not only symbiotic in that success in one sector helps in the other but they are also both fundamental human rights. PRB recommends policymakers invest in family planning as a tool to improve the health and food security of families and communities. On a broader scale, the presentation aims to start a dialogue about ways to include family planning in nutrition and food security development efforts.

For further reference, see the two reports that provided the basis of this ENGAGE presentation.