Editorial Simplified : Turning the Policy Focus to Child Undernutrition | GS – II


Relevance :  GS Paper  II


Introduction

The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) report, brought out recently by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, assumes salience, especially against two important factors.

  • One, the latest Global Hunger Index (GHI), 2019 ranks India at the 102nd position out of 117 countries.
  • Two, India’s past performance in reducing child undernutrition has been rather mixed: there was a moderate decline in stunting but not in wasting..

Educated mothers

Stunting among children under four years came down from 46% to 19%, a whopping 27% points decline, when maternal education went up from illiteracy/no schooling to 12 years of schooling completed. This phenomenal decline was also true for the number of underweight children.


Decline in wasting

  • The extent of decline in wasting is larger than that of stunting: about 4% points within 22 months.
  • Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana have reduced wasting by 10% points or more within just 30 months or less, the best performer being Uttarakhand that has reduced wasting by 14% points.
  • Surprisingly, these States have not performed equally well in reducing stunting, despite the fact that wasting and stunting share many common causes.

What can be done ?

  • Ending open defecation and enhancing access to safe water and sanitation are indeed appropriate policy goals, which need to be sustained. However, ending open defecation alone will not reduce stunting phenomenally, as is evident from the experience of Bangladesh.
  • One aspect, which is yet to be firmly embedded into nutrition policy, is dietary diversity. It is important to move away from the present focus on rice and wheat, which studies denounce as ‘staple grain fundamentalism,’ of Public Distribution System (PDS), to a more diversified food basket, with an emphasis on coarse grains.

 

Leave a Reply