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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Midday meals leave a long-lasting impact: study

Midday meals leave a long-lasting impact: study

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published Published on Jul 18, 2021   modified Modified on Jul 19, 2021

-The Hindu

Lower stunting among children with mothers who had access to free school lunches, shows data from 1993-2016.

Girls who had access to the free lunches provided at government schools, had children with a higher height-to-age ratio than those who did not, says a new study on the inter-generational benefits of India’s midday meal scheme published in Nature Communications this week.

Using nationally representative data on cohorts of mothers and their children spanning 23 years, the paper showed that by 2016, the prevalence of stunting was significantly lower in areas where the mid scheme was implemented in 2005.

Pioneering study

More than one in three Indian children are stunted, or too short for their age, which reflects chronic undernutrition. The fight against stunting has often focussed on boosting nutrition for young children, but nutritionists have long argued that maternal health and well-being is the key to reduce stunting in their offspring. Noting that “interventions to improve maternal height and education must be implemented years before those girls and young women become mothers”, the study has attempted a first-of-its-kind inter-generational analysis of the impacts of a mass feeding programme.

The paper was authored by a researcher from the University of Washington and economists and nutrition experts at the International Food Policy Research Institute. It found that the midday meal scheme was associated with 13-32% of India’s improvement in height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) between 2006 and 2016.

The linkages between midday meals and lower stunting in the next generation were stronger in lower socio-economic strata and likely work through women’s education, fertility, and use of health services, said the paper.

Court mandate

The midday meal scheme was launched in 1995 to provide children in government schools with a free cooked meal with a minimum energy content of 450 kcal, but only 6% of girls aged 6-10 years had benefited from the scheme in 1999. By 2011, with an expansion in budget, and state implementation following a Supreme Court order, coverage had grown to 46%.

The study tracked nationally representative cohorts of mothers by birth year and socio-economic status to show how exposure to the scheme reduced stunting in their children.

IFPRI researcher Purnima Menon, one of the authors of the study, said the key takeaway is to “expand and improve school meals now for inter-generational pay-offs not too far down in time.” Tweeting about the study, she said, “Girls in India finish school, get married and have children all in just a few years — so school-based interventions can really help.”

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The Hindu, 18 July, 2021, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/midday-meals-result-in-healthier-next-generation-study/article35393273.ece?homepage=true


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