Grinding poverty coupled with growing unemployment and rapid price rise of all essential commodities, have pushed a large section of the Indian population below the poverty line. Consequently, India has over 230 million malnourished people, according to UN agency Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
A study conducted by the National Sample Survey organization (NSSO) revealed that eating habits have changed, but protein consumption has declined in both rural as well as in urban areas. The average caloric value, of food consumed, is much lower than the specified requirement. Worst is the case of the 44 million children under the age of five who are stunted and suffer various deformities including illnesses because they are not getting enough of the right nutrition. In fact, nearly four of every 10 young children growing up in India today are not getting enough of the right kind of nutrition to help their body and mind grow to their full potential.
Unfortunately, our policy-makers fail to understand that nutrition is key to unlocking every child’s potential – well-nourished children are better equipped to fend of diseases, they do better in school, and they grow up to become more productive members of society. Children are not just a statistic in a study report, but they are India’s future, and every single one of them deserve a chance to live a healthy and productive life. There is an urgent need to ensure that every child not only survives but thrives, and this has to start in a child’s early years with enough of the right kind of nutrition.
A UNICEF report on the ‘Progress of Nations’ points out that 66 per cent of Indian children suffer from malnourishment, and as a result, nearly 45 per cent of under-five children are under-weight and seven per cent of them dying before they reach five years. Pregnant women too suffer because of poor nutrition and their number stands at 83 per cent, the highest in the world – firmly establishing India among the world’s most hunger-ridden countries. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which combines the three indicators to give a Global Hunger Index (GHI), as per which India is 67th among the worst 80 countries in terms of nourishment.
The National Family and Health Survey (NFHS) has revealed that 23 per cent of married men, 52 per cent of married women and a chilling 72 per cent of infants were anaemic – a sure sign that a shockingly large number of families were caught in a downward spiral of slow starvation. Global research has firmly established that depriving the foetus of essential nutrients – as will happen in an under-nourished pregnant woman, seals the fate of the baby once it is born. Besides, it is likely to suffer from susceptibility to diseases and physical retardation, as also to mental faculties getting compromised. So continuing to allow people to go hungry and malnourished, is not just more misery for them; it is the fate of future generations of Indians in balance.
A new study in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh has found that preventable deaths continue to hit children in the poorest areas of the country. Severe acute malnutrition should be recognized as a medical emergency with one million children under-five dying in India annually due to malnourishment-related causes, researchers say. According to UNICEF, the statistics figure of one million children under-five dying due to malnourishment every year in India is alarming and far above the emergency threshold for acute malnutrition (as per WHO classification of severity of malnutrition).
Analysis of the state-wise National Sample Survey and the National Family Health Survey data led to the conclusion that the most important cause of malnutrition in India was the abysmal state of ‘public health’ in terms of sanitation, pure drinking water and public knowledge about the importance of cleanliness. In fact, analysis of the malnutrition data from across the country confirms conclusion that quality of public health, as measured by variables such as access to better sanitation and improved water sources, explains much of the cross-country variations in the prevalence of malnutrition and high malnutrition in India relative to other countries with similar levels of per capita income and poverty.
Researchers point out that improvement in environmental sanitation are the clearest and most effective policy-programme tool for the central government to reduce, if not eliminate, the excessively high levels of malnutrition in India. The cross-country data complements the interstate study by showing that female primary education is an important factor in reducing child malnutrition, by helping spread information and knowledge about personal hygiene, sanitation and nutrition.
(The writer is a freelance journalist)
