India was ranked 94th out of 107 countries in the 2020 Global Hunger Index and is in the ‘severe’ hunger category with experts blaming poor implementation processes, lack of effective monitoring, isolated approach to tackling malnutrition and the poor performance of the large states behind the low ranking.
Last year, India’s ranking was 102 out of 117 countries.
Neighbors Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan are also in the “severe” category, but are ahead of India in this year’s hunger index. While Bangladesh ranked 75th, Myanmar and Pakistan are ranked 78th and 88th.
Nepal at No. 73 and Sri Lanka at No. 64 are in the ‘moderate’ hunger category, the report showed.
Seventeen countries, including China, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba and Kuwait, shared the top spot with GHI scores of less than five, the website for the Global Hunger Index, which tracks hunger and malnutrition, said on Friday.
According to the report, 14% of the population of India is undernourished.
It also showed that the country recorded a stunting rate of 37.4% among children under five years of age and a wasting rate of 17.3%. The mortality rate for children under five was 3.7%.
Wasting is children who are underweight for their height, reflecting acute malnutrition. Stunting are children under the age of five who are short for their age, reflecting chronic malnutrition.
Data from 1991 to 2014 for Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan showed that stunting is concentrated among children in households facing multiple forms of deprivation, including low dietary diversity, low levels of maternal education, and poverty. family.
During this period, India experienced a decline in under-five mortality, driven in large part by a decline in deaths from asphyxia or birth trauma, neonatal infections, pneumonia and diarrhea, according to the report.
“However, infant mortality, caused by prematurity and low birth weight, increased particularly in the poorest states and rural areas. Preventing prematurity and low birth weight is identified as a key factor with the potential to reduce under-five mortality in India, through actions such as better prenatal care, education and nutrition, as well as reductions in anemia and oral tobacco consumption, ”he said. .
Experts believe that poor implementation processes, lack of effective monitoring, and isolated approaches to address malnutrition often result in poor nutrition rates.
Purnima Menon, Principal Investigator at the International Food Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, said the performance of large states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh must be improved to see an overall change in India’s ranking.
“The national average is greatly affected by states like UP and Bihar… states that actually have a combination of high levels of malnutrition and contribute a lot to the country’s population.
“One in five children born in India is in Uttar Pradesh. So if you have a high level of malnutrition in a state that has a high population, you contribute a lot to the Indian average. So obviously the Indian average will move slowly, ”he told PTI.
Menon said that large states with large populations and a high burden of malnutrition are the ones that are really hitting the Indian average.
“So if we want a change in India, we would also need a change in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar,” he said.
Shweta Khandelwal, Director of Nutrition Research and Additional Professor at the Public Health Foundation of India, said the country has one of the most impressive portfolios of nutrition programs and policies of all books.
“However, the realities on the ground are pretty dire.” “Research shows that our top-down approach, poor implementation processes, lack of effective monitoring, and isolated approaches to addressing malnutrition (missing convergence) often result in poor nutrition rates. We must integrate actions to make public health and nutrition a priority in each sector, ”he told PTI.
Khandelwal suggested five measures to prevent the exacerbation of hunger due to the pandemic.
“Safeguard and promote access to nutritious, safe and affordable diets; invest in improving maternal and child nutrition during pregnancy, infancy and early childhood; reactivating and expanding services for the early detection and treatment of childhood wasting; maintain the provision of nutritious and safe school meals for vulnerable children and expand social protection to safeguard access to nutritious diets and essential services, ”he said.
He said it is important to aim to curb the multiple forms of malnutrition holistically in a concerted way rather than single short-sighted solutions. “Hunger and malnutrition cannot and should not be solved with the mere provision of calories. All stakeholders led by strong leadership must pay attention to healthy and balanced diets that are climate friendly, affordable and accessible to all, ”he added.
The GHI score is calculated on the basis of four indicators: malnutrition; child wasting, the proportion of children under five years of age who are wasted, who are low weight for their height reflecting acute malnutrition); childhood stunting, children under the age of five who are short for their age reflecting chronic malnutrition; and infant mortality: the mortality rate of children under five years of age.
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