India’s child malnutrition: Troubling data from the National Family Health Survey
Reproduced below is an article “India’s child malnutrition story worsens”, by Patralekha Chatterjee, published in one of the world’s oldest and best-known general medical journals, Lancet:
India’s economic growth in recent decades has co-existed with alarming levels of chronic hunger and stunting. The country ranked 94th among 107 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2020, way behind many other developing countries. Now, new data suggest that child malnutrition might be worsening fewer children in India are dying, but those who survive are more malnourished and anaemic in many states.
2230 Photo for representation only. - File photo
Phase one of the National Family Health Survey-5, covering nearly 50 per cent of the population, has thrown up a shocking challenge: tackling the increase in the number of children suffering from malnutrition in most states. This negative trend is alarming and spells a worrisome rise in the burden of a young population prone to disease and early death. It signals huge loopholes in the government’s policies targeting malnutrition such as the Integrated Child Development Scheme, the National Nutrition Policy, the Mid-Day Meal Scheme for schoolchildren, and the National Food Security Act 2013. The government needs to investigate why despite better monitoring following scams that riddled these well-intentioned schemes, there is a rise in the number of stunted, wasted and underweight kids. Though the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected the vulnerable groups as the food supply chain was disrupted, has contributed to this setback, it is n