Authors : Arifa Sultana

Volume/Issue : Volume 8 - 2023, Issue 6 - June

Google Scholar : https://bit.ly/3TmGbDi

Scribd : https://tinyurl.com/jezhmaey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8107031

Abstract : As per the Global Hunger Index (2021), India ranked poorly at 101 among 116 countries in the World and is projected as seriously severity among the countries of the world. Though India ranks second in food production in the world, it is also second in undernourished population in the world. This paper brings out the trends and patterns of under-nutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and over-nutrition among children and adults across states in India using NFHS data. The under-nutrition status shows that the stunted children in India on an average as per NFHS-5 are 31.6 a little less when compared to NFHS-4 at 32.23 percent. The states like Bihar, UP, Jharkhand and Meghalaya continue with highest rates of stunted children having more than 40 percent. There has been an increase in the stunted children in most of the northeast states and Telangana in south and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Lakshadweep among Union Territories and Himachal Pradesh in north. The status of underweight children shows that there has been a decrease in most of the states except a few states. There has been a reduction in the child wasting rate in most of the states in India. In case of Malnourishment among women, it is observed that the BMI < 18.5 for women aged 15-49 has improved in all states except in Punjab and in Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Similar situation exist for malnourished men except for 7 states. The situation of anaemic children across states has worsened where most of the states have witnessed an increase with some of the states with very high increase in anaemic condition of children. Except a few states like Goa, Tamil Nadu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, all other states have witnessed an increase in anaemic children. Anaemic condition of men and women has risen in most of the states. After malnutrition, over-weight has become another alarming problem in India, the status of overweight children aged 6 to 59 months shows that there has been an increase in the overweight cases across states in India. The percentage of overweight women has increased across states in India except a few states like Rajasthan; Meghalaya; Nagaland; Gujarat; and Lakshadweep. There has been an increase in overweight cases of men in all states except Andhra Pradesh and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. The NFHS-5 computed waist to hip ratio for the first time and it reveals that on an average about 60 percent of women and 48 percent of men in India are at high risk for heart diseases, diabetes and premature deaths as the waist to hip ratio is high. Though there is a positive change but the extent of change is very less and it is the need of the hour to take up healthy diet habits and curb the problems of malnutrition and also the newly added problem of over- nutrition which is scaling up high in most of the states in India. Policy interventions like creation of nutritional awareness, changes in PDS system and an increase in spending on micronutrient supplementation programme across states is needed to curb the micronutrient deficiencies and problems of malnutrition.