18/10/2022 - Health

KEY POINTS

·        The Global Hunger Index, a peer reviewed annual publication from Concern Worldwide and Welthungerlife, has set off a controversy with its low ranking assigned to India in 2022.

·        The report calls India’s score of 29.1 as ‘serious’ but the government has refused to accept it with the Ministry of Child and Family Welfare terming the index ‘an erroneous measure of hunger and suffering from serious methodological issues’.

·        But the GHI has captured undernourishment in India through Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) survey conducted through Gallup World poll, with a sample size of just 3,000

·        Besides this, the mean values used in the GHI to measure stunting and wasting may not be strictly applicable to India, given the genetic differences.

·        The National Family Health Survey, 2019-21 shows under-five years mortality rate at 42 per 1,000 live births. Stunting of children under five was 36 per centand wasting at 19 per cent.

·        The Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 scheme which have subsumed Anganwadi Services, Poshan Abhiyaan and Scheme for Adolescent Girls under the ICDS seek to address the problem of undernourishment in the country in early childhood and thereafter.

·        Budgetary allocations need to be larger; the sum set aside for the schemes have remained almost unchanged in Budget 2022-23.

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Kindly Review

Malnutrition is insufficient intake of required nutrients by an individual. In India it affects the growth and productivity of our country, and its population. 14.5% of India,s population are undernourished according to Global hunger index. 

Evidences of malnutrition in India:

* 38 % of children are either stunted, wasted(by UNICEF).

* Malnutrition in states having higher population is common and has remained unchanged during these years.

* Poor states with lack of infrastructure facilities and underdeveloped sanitation and unhygienic measures are still malnourished.

* India being one of the largest exporter of food grains have failed to serve it's own citizens with sufficient food.

Way forward:

* Monitoring and keeping a track on integrated child development scheme and poshan abhiyan where malnourishment can be tackled from childhood.

* Tamilnadu ' s breakfast scheme can be taken up in poor states which will help school children going to classes without hunger and may help in their overall skill and mental health.

* Pandemic has even worsened the situation, and government has to provide subsidized food grains with more micronutrients added to the diet of poor.

    Recognizing flaws in the implementation of government schemes and addressing loopholes in the beneficiaries receiving the product at the end thereby eliminate middlemen.

Kindly review