New Delhi: The nutritional level among children in India has worsened in the past five years, according to health data released earlier this week. Eighteen of the 22 states and territories of the Union (UT) saw an increase in the percentage of children under the age of five with stunting, wasting and underweight compared to 2015-16, reversing decades of gains, the latest showed National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
States including Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa and Himachal Pradesh – that he had lowered his rgrowth retardation in the previous decade – have reported an increase in stunted children in the fifth round of the NFHS survey (2019-20). Sixteen states and UT of 22 respondents saw an increase in the percentage of severely wasted and underweight children under the age of five compared to NFHS-4, the data showed.
The National Family Health Survey – a main source of health data in India – covers more than 400,000 households and collects data on marriage, fertility, vaccines, nutrition and health status, among other indicators. India already scores low on the world hunger index – ranking just above 13 countries out of a total of 107, including North Korea, Haiti, Afghanistan and others.
Surprisingly, the social media platform suspended Road Scholarz’s Twitter account, which tweeted about the report’s adverse findings.
According to a ‘Hunger Watch’ survey released this week, the hunger situation remains dire among underserved and vulnerable communities in up to 11 states, even five months after the shutdown ended, with large numbers of families going to bed without food.
According to India Spend, if rates of childhood stunting across India were to increase, as indicated by data from phase I (from NHFS-5), this would represent the first increase in childhood stunting since 1998-99. However, it is important to note here, when making any comparison, that the data covered in NHFS 1, 2, and 3 on infant nutrition were for children three years old and younger, while the data in NHFS 4 and 5 covered children under the age of five. years and younger. . Therefore, making a direct comparison with this year can be difficult. Based on previous data, stunting rates for children under three years of age decreased from 1998-99 to 2005-06.
Purnima Menon, Senior Researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said India Spend, “I think what we are seeing at the moment is the impact of the economic slowdown in recent years and some of those economic shocks that were experienced.”
“The increase in childhood stunting is ‘extremely worrying,'” Menon said, adding that there are parts of India where we really don’t know how people have been living and how they have experienced the impacts of the past few years. She said India Spend that NHFS-5 data was collected in 2019 and would not take into account the food insecurity experienced in 2020 after the closure, prompting the need for large sample surveys to understand the food insecurity situation in India.
There are three key indicators used to measure child malnutrition: stunting (lower than expected height for age), wasting (lower than expected weight for height), and underweight (lower than expected weight for age). ). .
According to a 2019 World Bank report, India has the second highest number of stunted children in South Asia (at 38%), after Afghanistan (at 41%). Wasting is highest in India at 21%, followed by Sri Lanka at 15% and Bangladesh at 14%, according to the report.
On the positive side, there has been an increase in childhood vaccination rates, the report showed. Seventy percent of children under the age of two are fully vaccinated in seventeen states and UT. This is important as the government seeks to vaccinate its 1.3 billion inhabitants against COVID-19.
The report highlighted a decline in spousal violence over the years, yet sexual assaults against children have increased since 2015-16. In nine of the 22 states and UT, more young women reported experiencing sexual violence as girls than in 2015-16.
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, publishing the report, said: “We have made remarkable progress in the operationalization of Ayushman Bharat – Health and Wellness Centers and we have crossed an important milestone in our journey. With 51,500 centers in operation, more than a third of the objective has been met. This has led to better access to affordable primary care services for more than 25 million people ”. However, health officials cautioned that the survey was unlikely to have captured the impact of the Ayushman Bharat scheme. The plan provides health insurance coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh for 100 million poor families and was launched in September 2018.
Some other previously published findings also point to a decline in the country’s nutritional status due to the economic slowdown. In a report titled ‘Pauses and reversals in the decline in infant mortality in India in 2017 and 2018’, published last month, demonetization and economic slowdown were cited as the main causes of the increase in the overall infant mortality rate in the country.
According to a Lancet In the report, malnutrition was the predominant risk factor for death in children under five years of age in all states of India in 2017, accounting for 68.2% of all deaths of children under five years of age, and the main risk factor loss of health for all. ages, responsible for 17.3% of all disability-adjusted life years.
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