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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Nutrition surprise in rich kids by GS Mudur

Even wealthy children show signs of poor nutrition in some Indian states, according to a new report on child malnutrition from a non-government organisation released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today.

The report, based on a survey across 100 districts in six states with poor child development indicators, has shown that child malnutrition is widespread — 42 per cent of children under five years of age are underweight, and 59 per cent are stunted, or are shorter than their ideal height.

The survey by the Naandi Foundation noted a reduction in the prevalence of child malnutrition from 53 per cent in a 2004 government survey to 42 per cent. But the high level of stunting and prevalence of undernutrition among wealthy children are some surprises, said Rohini Mukherjee, team leader for the survey. “While problems of underweight children can be handled relatively quickly with proper nutrition, stunting requires long-term measures,” she said.

“I think both these problems reveal knowledge gaps among mothers,” Mukherjee said. The survey covered more than 70,000 households scattered across Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.

The survey revealed that wealthy children experience a more dramatic decline in nutrition scores with age than children from lower economic groups, an effect that was observed to be particularly strong in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

“Wealthier children lose some of their advantage at birth as they grow older,” the report said. “It is striking that being wealthy does not prevent the decline in (nutrition) scores that is the general pattern, suggesting diet or sanitary practices may be key to understanding what’s going on.”

A measure of poor nutrition called “nutrition z-score” when examined through the body mass index, for instance, was -0.4 among children from low income groups, but was -0.2 among children from high income groups in the 100 focus districts.

Survey officials believe poor nutrition among wealthy children is due to inappropriate feeding practices. “We need to focus on behavioural changes to improve feeding practices so that children below five get adequate nutrition,” said Jaichandra Reddy, a programme officer with the Naandi Foundation.

Parents often focus on providing their children cereals, and do not pay adequate attention to other non-cereal foods, he said.

Releasing the report, the Prime Minister described the country’s problem of malnutrition as “a matter of national shame,” and said the report’s findings are both worrying and encouraging. “Despite impressive growth in our GDP, the level of undernutrition in the country is unacceptably high,” Singh said.

He said the 42 per cent underweight children is “unacceptably high”, but the results also show a 20 per cent decline in malnourishment over the past seven years.