This last argument may apply most to Indian women who have migrated away from their natal villages into their husband's households, where they have relatively little status. In sum, indirect evidence makes plausible the hypothesis that one group is less well nourished than another, but poor health outcomes can result from inadequate food, inadequate health care, or other forms of discrimination. To test the hypothesis that a group receives less food, it is necessary to focus more closely on either the balance of intake and requirements or its more immediate outcome, the individual's nutritional status. The conventional wisdom in this area would tell us that females and children are likeliest to go hungry. Malnutrition in girls is much more common than among boys and the fact that, on average, an American woman weighs approximately 25 per cent more than an Indian women is to be explained not by race but by food.
Males tend to receive more and better food than females.
However, the present review concludes that, while there are undoubtedly situations in which women and children are targets of discrimination in intra-household food allocation, this conclusion has been applied too broadly. Much of the widespread disadvantage of children and their mothers can be better understood in terms of childhood diseases and consumption patterns that restrict maternal intake during pregnancy and lactation, plus restricted access by females of all ages to health care, rather than as the result of food-distribution patterns that routinely discriminate against women and children.