India, Under-nutrition

Under-nutrition, as a “silent” emergency, haunts the lives of millions of Indian children. Several facts reveal the magnitude and severity of the nutritional crisis facing the country. Close to two million children below the age of five die in India every year. Of these, over a million deaths can be attributed to under-nutrition and hunger. Available reports place the number of annual child deaths because of under-nutrition in Maharashtra alone – one of India’s most prosperous States – at 45,000. Sadly, only a handful of starvation and nutrition-related deaths get reported by the media. Most of the times, child deaths and suffering because of poor nutrition go unnoticed. That India reports among the highest levels of child under-nutrition has been rightly termed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a “national shame”.
Stunting (deficiency in height for age) affects close to 195 million children under five years of age in the developing world. Of these, around 61 million – the largest number – live in India. Wasting (deficiency in weight for height) affects around 71 million children under five in the developing world. Of these, some 25 million are in India. And an estimated 129 million children under five in the developing world are underweight (that is deficient in weight for age – a composite measure of stunting and wasting). Of these, close to 54 million are children in India. In 2005-06, 43 per cent of Indian children below five years of age were underweight and 48 per cent were stunted. In China, only 7 per cent of similar children are underweight and 11 per cent are stunted. The corresponding levels of child malnutrition are much lower in Africa where 21 per cent of children below five years are underweight and 36 per cent are stunted.
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