This article investigates the role of structure and agency in hunger reduction in India using the case study of the Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Project (TINP). The TINP was a World Bank-funded, state-run project that was initiated in 1980 to improve the nutritional and health status of preschool children, and pregnant and nursing women. Its primary purpose was behavioural change of mothers using the educational tools of growth monitoring, nutrition counselling and supplementary feeding. This paper argues that the predominant cause of undernutrition is not ignorance, but structural factors such as poverty and gender inequality that constrain women's agency. In addition, it examines the representation of the feminised ‘mind’ which is the point of interface between the state and the body.
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