Malnutrition

The Data from the National Family Health Survey or NFHS-4 confirms the finding from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC) of 2015 that there has been a significant decline in child malnutrition in the country during the last decade.

While there has been a decline in childhood stunting (considering one of the most important indicators as it represents chronic malnutrition) in almost all states, there still exists a wide gap between states. Therefore, while 28 per cent of children’s in Telangana and 27 per cent in Tamil Nadu have a low height for age, the corresponding figures for Bihar and Madhya Pradesh are 48 per cent and 42 per cent. The Global Nutrition Report 2015 finds Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh have high initial rates of stunting and yet subsequent declines in stunting in these states are lower than most other states.

From earlier studies we do know that a number of factors contribute to malnutrition, including food availability and quality, women’s status within the household and in the society, access to health services and prevalence of open defecation. It would be wrong to focus only on economic growth as an explanatory factor for the improvement in malnutrition in this period.

The India Health Report compares the levels of stunting in India to other countries with similar levels of per capita income or even lower and finds that the level of stunting in India is higher than what would be expected based on its per capita income levels. A number of countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Tanzania, Kenya etc have a lower per capita income than India but also lower level of stunting.

Other indicators such as those related to women’s status also show a very strong correlation with malnutrition levels. Takin the percentage of institutional deliveries and the percentage of institutional deliveries and the percentage of women who received full antenatal care as proxies for the availability of health services, these factors are also highly correlated with levels of stunting.

To keep up the momentum gained in reducing malnutrition, there is a need to put more resources into the public programmes that contribute to improvements.