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Courtesy Bangladesh Freedom Foundation.

It is widely assumed that the improvement of nutrition is determined by economic factors alone. Yet such a perspective fails to explain why pregnant women, regardless of their socioeconomic status, consume less food. In view of the inadequacy of economic models, we propose a culture analysis of the dietary beliefs and behavior of pregnant women of rural Bangladesh. The notion of humoral disposition has been found to be practiced in dietary and health values among rural women. The common referent of the humoral properties lies in the cognition of a "hot" and "cold" dichotomy in relation to the properties of food and body-state. The transition from puberty to pregnancy signifies changes from a relative "cold" body condition to a "hot" state. Pregnant women are viewed as particularly susceptible to variation in hot/cold disposition in body-state. In order to neutralize the undesirable heat and to attain equilibrium, women prefer diets containing elements of coolness. Health is believed to depend upon the careful maintenance of this balance in food habits. The practices originating from this belief system are the delimiting factors of rural women's dietary habits, and therefore should be reckoned with in any effort of directed nutritional change in Bangladesh.

On laws and matters relating to writ jurisdiction including commentaries.