Skip to main content

Poor care: India accounts for 3 out of every 10 stunted children globally


By Moin Qazi*
"We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is today." ― Gabriela Mistral
A recent alarming signal in the health profile of Indian children went largely unnoticed. India, whose growing prosperity has hardly made any significant dent into chronic malnutrition of children, slipped three places to 100 in the 2017 Global Hunger Index (GHI) of 119 countries in which it has consistently ranked low .India has historically fared poorly on child nutrition indicators and has been plagued by periodical waves of malnutrition-related deaths in tribal areas.
With 17% of the world’s population, India is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry. A population almost the size of Uttar Pradesh remains hungry every day. It is a tragic irony that while it has made impressive gains in foodgrains production this has not been p[parlayed into any significant improvement in elimination of hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, in its report titled, ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2017’ depicted a grim picture — a staggering 190.7 million people or 14.5 per cent of the population is undernourished in India. .The dismal health of Indian women and children is primarily due to lack of food security. Food security exists when all people at all times have physical, economic and social access to safe, adequate and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs for a healthy and active life. Malnutrition affects women more than it affects men due to the specific nutrition needs of women during adolescence, pregnancy, and lactation;
India is the leading producer of milk with the largest buffalo population, the second largest producer of vegetables, fruits, and fish. Despite this, it has failed to vanquish hunger. Nearly one-third of adults in the country have a Body Mass Index (BMI) below normal just because they do not have enough food to eat.
  • Of all Indian children under five,one in three (35.7%) is underweight(low weight for age),
  • one in three (38.4%) is stunted (low height for age),
  • one in five (21%) is wasted(low weight for height),
  • only every second child exclusively breastfed for the first six months,
  • 3,000 children die every day from poor diet-related illness,
  • fewer than half of all Indian children start nursing within their first 24 hours, although breast-milk helps to protect infants against infection.
This is worse than many sub-Saharan countries. Overall, India accounts for more than three out of every 10 stunted children globally. This is largely owing to a lack of quality food, poor care and feeding practices and inadequate water, sanitation, and health services in the country. The chronic impact of stunting on lifelong learning and adult productivity, in addition to increased disease susceptibility, is well known. Going by NFHS-4 results, it appears that 40% of our future workforce will be unable to achieve their full physical and cognitive potential.
Many children are born to anemic and malnourished teenage mothers. Indeed, 33.6% of Indian women are chronically undernourished and 55% are anaemic. The loss of gross domestic product to anaemia was estimated at $22.64 billion (Rs 1.50 lakh crore) in 2016, more than three times the health budget of the country for 2017-18.
According to the “India: State-level Disease Burden Report and Technical Paper”, the disease burden due to malnutrition dropped in India substantially since 1990bt but was still responsible for 15 per cent of the total disease burden in 2016 and was 12 times higher than in China.
The well known development economist Jean Dreze argues that the most serious nutrition challenge in India is to reach out to children under three years of age: “It is well known that if a child is undernourished by age three, it is very difficult to repair the damage after that.” The costs of failing to do so—both in human and economic and terms—are huge. Pervasive long-term malnutrition erodes the foundations of the economy by destroying the potential of millions of infants. Children stunted on account of malnutrition are estimated to go on to earn an average of 20% less as adults. Many of them will turn out to be morons.
Much less investment is required to maintain adequate nourishment for children than is required to repair broken children. A package of basic measures—including programmes to encourage mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children for up to six months, fortifying basic foods with essential vitamins and minerals and increased cash transfers targeted at the poorest families—can turn the tide.
India already has two robust national programmes addressing malnutrition—the Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) and the National Health Mission—but these do not yet reach enough people. The delivery system is also inadequate and plagued by inefficiency and corruption. Some analysts estimate that 40% of the subsidized food never reaches the intended recipients.
Most child deaths in India occur from treatable diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and complications at birth. The child may eventually die of a disease, but that disease becomes lethal because the child is malnourished and unable to put up resistance to it .The staff of ICDS places part of the blame of malnutrition on parents being inattentive to the needs of their children, but crushing poverty forces most women to leave their young children at home and work in the fields during the agricultural seasons.
A significant cause of malnutrition is also the deliberate failure of malnourished people to choose nutritious food. One survey by the economists Duflo and Banerjee has found that, overall, the poor in developing countries had enough money to increase their food spending by as much as 30% but that this money was spent on alcohol, tobacco, and festivals instead.
The good news is that there are bright spots on the horizon. Progress is still slow and the political will patchy but there are signs that a sensible stewardship is emring.. India’s official think tank NITI Aayog has drafted a National Nutrition Strategy that aims to eradicate malnutrition from the country by 2030.With this end in view it has set the following targets:To reduce under nutrition in children (0-3 years) by 3% per annum until 2022.
To reduce the prevalence of anemia among young children, adolescent girls and women in the reproductive age group (15-49 years) by one-third of the NFHS 4 levels by 2022.
Some other recommendations are for programmes to promote breastfeeding for the first six months after birth, universal access to infant and young child care including ICDS and crèches, provisions to provide bi-annual critical nutrient supplements and programs aimed at de-worming children. In the area of maternal care, the strategy proposes that the government provide nutritional support—in particular, the adequate consumption of iodised salt—to mothers during pregnancy and lactation. There is also an urgent need of good quality universal free school meals for all primary children.
These policies can reap the desired dividends if the government sets hard coded timelines and maintains stringent monitoring. Good intentions have to be accompanied be accompanied by similar actions on the ground.

*Author of “Village Diary of a Heretic Banker”

Comments

TRENDING

Defeat of martial law: Has the decisive moment for change come in South Korea?

By Steven Lee  Late at night on December 3, soldiers stormed into South Korea’s National Assembly in armored vehicles and combat helicopters. Assembly staff desperately blocked their assault with fire extinguishers and barricades. South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol had just declared martial law to “ eliminate ‘anti-state’ forces .”

70,000 migrants, sold on Canadian dream, face uncertain future: Canada reinvents the xenophobic wheel

By Saurav Sarkar*  Bikram Singh is running out of time on his post-study work visa in Canada. Singh is one of about 70,000 migrants who were sold on the Canadian dream of eventually making the country their home but now face an uncertain future with their work permits set to expire by December 2024. They came from places like India, China, and the Philippines, and sold their land and belongings in their home countries, took out loans, or made other enormous commitments to get themselves to Canada.

EVMs: Govt must prove beyond reasonable doubt it's upholding mandate for free, fair polls

By Jerald D’souza  With the growth of India’s population, concerns about electoral fraud associated with ballot papers, also began to escalate. In 1989, the People’s Representation Act was amended to enable EVMs to prevent electoral fraud. In 1998, EVMs made their debut during legislative assembly elections and for the first time for general elections in 2004. However, criticisms against the EVMs and questions about their integrity have been raised by political parties, civil society and the general population. On 2 February 2024, there was a noteworthy demonstration of dissent where numerous individuals, including Ambedkarite advocates, legal professionals, and other members of civil society  convened at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar demanding the prohibition of EVMs. In 2024, the Supreme court had slapped down a petition to return to paper ballots on the basis that machines give “absolutely accurate results” unless human bias maligns them. The court stated that it was open to testi...

This Indian British Marxist blamed USSR's collapse in 1991 on Khrushchev's 'revisionism'

By Harsh Thakor*  Harpal Singh Brar, British Indian Marxist scholar and communist leader, has passed away in Chandigarh. He was 85. He was a lifelong supporter of socialism, Marxism, and the working class. He will be remembered among British Communists.

Chalapathi's death in encounter suggests Maoists' inability to establish broader mass support

By Harsh Thakor* The Maoist movement experienced a significant loss during the Ramagudem encounter on January 21, with the death of Chalapathi (Pratap), a Central Committee member of the CPI (Maoist). His death, along with 15 others, marks a major setback for the movement. Reports suggest that his location was revealed to security forces through a selfie with his wife.

A groundbreaking non-violent approach: Maharishi’s invincible defense technology

By MajGen (R) Kulwant Singh, Col (R) SP Bakshi, Col (R) Jitendra Jung Karki, LtCol (R) Gunter Chassé & Dr David Leffler*  In today’s turbulent world, achieving lasting peace and ensuring national security are more urgent than ever. Traditional defense methods focus on advanced weapons, military strategies, and tactics, but a groundbreaking approach offers a new non-violent and holistic solution: Maharishi’s Invincible Defense Technology (IDT). 

Why do we mostly resist and refrain from communicating on sanitation topic?

By Nikhil Kumar, Mansee Bal Bhargava* According to UN SDG Progress report (2022), at the present moment no targets for SDG 6 are expected to be met by 2030. In 2022, 2.2 billion people had no access to safe drinking water and 3.5 million lacked safe sanitation. Approximately 50% of the world’s population was reported to have been under resourced in enough water for part of the year and a quarter of that population was living under “extremely high” water stress. Add to it, droughts have affected over 1.4 billion people between 2002 and 2021.

CCG raises concerns over Indian State of Forest Report 2023 in open letter to environment minister

By A Representative  The Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), a collective of former civil servants, has expressed serious concerns over the Indian State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023 in an open letter to the Union Minister for Environment, Forests & Climate Change. The group has criticized the report's delayed release, flawed methodology, and misleading claims regarding the state of India's forests.

Operation Kagar represents Indian state's intensified attempt to extinguish Maoism: Resistance continues

By Harsh Thakor Operation Kagar represents the Indian state's intensified attempt to extinguish Maoism, which claims to embody the struggles and aspirations of Adivasis. Criminalized by the state, the Maoists have been portrayed as a threat, with Operation Kagar deploying strategies that jeopardize their activities. This operation weaves together economic, cultural, and political motives, allegedly with drone attacks on Adivasi homes.

अल्पसंख्यक कार्य मंत्रालय का बजट निराशाजनक: 19.3% अल्पसंख्यकों के लिए मात्र 0.0661% ठोस आवंटन

- मुजाहिद नफ़ीस*   1-2-2025 को भारत सरकार द्वारा संसद में वर्ष 2025-26 का बजट वित्त मंत्री निर्मला सीतारमण जी ने पेश किया| इस वर्ष का बजट 5065345 करोड़ है जो कि पिछले साल के संशोधित अनुमान से लगभग 7.39% की बढ़ोतरी हुई है| वहीं अल्पसंख्यक कार्य मंत्रालय का बजट मात्र 3350.00 करोड़ है जो कि कुल बजट का 0.0661% लगभग है|  पिछले साल 2024-25 में 3183.24 करोड़ था|