Road to a malnutrition-free India -Bhavani RV

-The Hindu

It’s imperative that ‘good nutrition’ becomes everyone’s mantra if we are serious about addressing the challenge

Malnutrition continues to be a major challenge in India 75 years after independence and we need concerted action around it. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) report on Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 puts the number of undernourished people in India in 2019-21 at 224.3 million, i.e., 16% of a 1.4 billion population.

The latest round of the National Family Health Survey 2019-21 (NFHS-5) finds that around a third of India’s children under five years of age are underweight and stunted and 67% children (6-59 months) are anaemic. Among adults, 57% women (15-49 years) are anaemic, as are a quarter of men in the same age group. While we grapple with undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency (hidden hunger), we are also witness to increasing incidence of another side of malnutrition, viz. obesity and an increase in incidence of noncommunicable diseases (NCD). Nearly a quarter of men and women aged 15-49 years are reported to be overweight or obese; and NCDs are reported to account for 65% of deaths in the country.

Please click here to read more.