Reasoning about causality and treatment of childhood nutritional deficiencies in rural India : role of indigenous knowledge and practices

This study examines the relative influence of traditional and biomedical theories of health and disease on the reasoning about childhood nutritional problems by mothers in rural South India. Mothers with different levels of schooling, traditional practitioners, and medical experts were interviewed. Their explanations of nutritional problems were verbally recorded and analysed using methods of cognitive analyses.Nutritional concepts and their interpretations given in the mothers' explanations matched that of the traditional theory of Siddha medicine, prevalent in South India. With an increase in formal education, there was an increase in the use of concepts derived from modern biomedical theory. However, the mothers exhibited little understanding of the underlying mechanisms involved. Implications of these findings for designing nutrition and health education are discussed, in relation to knowledge reorganization to replace harmful concepts and relations with beneficial ones