While everyone regardless of gender contract diseases, some health issues affect women differently and commonly. Most women's health conditions go undiagnosed and most drug trials do not include test subjects. Women bear health concerns such as breast cancer, cervical cancer, menopause and pregnancy. According to a report, past studies on women focused on diseases that affected fertility and reproduction, while there were studies on other diseases focused on men. Women health has been neglected since the early days if it didn't focus on fertility. Gender-based judgment harms women’s health in India according to a joint study conducted by researches at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the Indian Statistical Sciences (AIIMS), the Indian Statistical Institute, Prime Minister Economic Advisory Council and Harvard University.
The Research also states that Women’s reproductive age was a big factor in determining whether she could access a doctor or not. For females up to 18 years old and between the ages of 19 and 20 years, there are 1.9 male patients per female and 2.02 males per female patient respectively. According to recent stats by WHO around 50% of pregnant women were anaemic. " Violence against women is endemic in every country and culture, causing harm to millions of women and their families, and has been exacerbated by the COvid19 pandemic" according the Director general.
80%to 90% of bone mass is acquired by women during childhood and adolescence. Bone mass continues to increase until the early 30s. If enough calcium is not deposited in bones during childhood they may turn weak later in life leading to bone diseases such as osteoporosis. By 2015 there were 46 million women with osteoporosis. Hence naturally osteoporosis is a major public health problem in Indian women (Khadilkar et al, 2015) toward the high prevalence of osteoporosis some of which are low calcium intakes with extensive prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, increasing longevity, sex inequality, early menopause, lack of diagnostic facilities, genetic predisposition and poor knowledge of bone health has contributed toward the high prevalence of osteoporosis.
Approximately 303000 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth in 2015.
Modernization and globalization has brought numerous behavioural changes which consists of some of the most significant and modifiable risk factors for chronic diseases. Only 3% of women in India meet the minimum healthy of physical activity patterns. Physical Inactivity is one of those factors which is damaging to health as much as obesity or smoking. Ranking 4th in the world it is a leading risk factor for death with over 5.3 billion deaths can be accredited to physical inactivity alone. It is as damaging to health as obesity and smoking.
"It's never too late to start"
We can start with moderate physical activity such as walking it will help us delay or prevent age-associated conditions such as diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease and high blood pressure.
Its high time we create awareness and start paying attention to our physical health and people around us not to mention our moms and grandmoms who need the most attention. Physical inactivity is reported more for women compared to men. As the wise saying goes-
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