Need for effective nutrition intervention

In India, where under nutrition and malnutrition is indeed a big problem, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas, the Global Nutrition Report offers hope as well reasons for concern. It shows that the country has made progress towards ensuring that every child can achieve growth potential. Between 2006 and 2014, stunting among children under the age of five dropped from 48 per cent to 39 per cent, which is a significant achievement compared to the previous seven-year period.

However, in States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, the decline has been much lower than the national average. Further, anaemia is found in over 70% of individuals in States of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, and Jharkhand. This is a cause for concern. If the nutrition levels in these States are improved, it would in turn lead to better social and economic prosperity. In urban areas, overweight status and obesity are over three times as high as rural areas.

As is well-known, India has one of the poorest records in the world when it comes to nutrition among children. Around 70 per cent children are anaemic and 1.83 million under age of five die every year. Moreover, 43 per cent malnutrition among under-5 children in the country is worse than that even in the sub-Saharan Africa. Further, around 38 per cent infants in India are underweight as opposed to only four per cent in China. Though this may have changed a little recently, other indicators also paint a grim picture.

This phenomenon is most prevalent in the rural areas, where more malnutrition exists on an absolute level. Hunger in modern day isn’t about protruding bellies and sunken faces, but mostly about getting enough to eat. It’s about not getting sufficient quantity of food that is essential and nutritious for a healthy life.

This is especially true of children and lactating mothers and it is widely felt that at least 50 per cent of women and children suffer from nutritional deficiencies. Though scientists of the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, had claimed in the early 90s that malnutrition among women has come down, the real picture even now is quite different, specially the conditions of the opposite sex in the backward districts of the country.

One cannot deny that despite India’s high GDP, under nutrition continues unchecked. In fact, every fourth new born Indian baby is underweight, i.e. 40 per cent of all babies fall in this category. Even renowned economist Prof Amartya Sen has been stressing on the problem of malnutrition that has plagued the country for years and led to an increase in various forms of diseases in children.

The 44 million stunted children presently in the country have to be transformed and only then can India claim to be a developed nation. Thus, understanding nutrition is in itself a big task and the Government along with the civil society organizations has a big role to play in this regard.

Primarily, there is need to design effective nutrition interventions and make it popular right down at the Panchayat level. A healthy and balanced diet has become all the more important because of the spread of pollution and environmental degradation, resulting in reducing the immune power of the individual.

It is heartening to note that the NIN has formulated an ‘Indian Food Composition’ (IFC) data base to analyse and document the nutrient values of 1200 food items consumed in the country. This would go a long way in creating necessary awareness among the masses about what constitutes a low cost nutritious diet with balance of protein, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins.