Malnutrition in Gujarat

Narendra Modi’s claim that malnutrition in Gujarat is a sign of prosperity, vegetarianism and figure-conscious girls is strange and illogical. Despite India’s notable achievement in increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the past decades, a greater proportion of increase income has gone to a small proportion of the population, say to the top 20 percent. As a result today more than one third of the world’s malnourished children live in India. The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report has ranked India 15th amongst leading countries with hunger situation. It also places India amongst the three countries where the GHI between 1996 and 2011 went up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries studied, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi, succeeded in improving hunger condition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world with dire consequences for mobility, mortality, productivity and economic growth. According to recent UN estimates 2.1 million children in India die before reaching the age of 5 every year – four every minute – mostly from preventable illnesses such as diarrhea, typhoid, malaria, measles and pneumonia. There are, however, substantial inter-state differences in child malnutrition and also in the (generally meager) progress made since the early 1990s. A look at the state-wise data for underweight children shows that highest malnutrition is in the Eastern and Central parts of India along with Uttar Pradesh. Child malnutrition is highest in Madhya Pradesh (60.3%), followed by Jharkhand (59.2), Bihar (59%), Chhattisgarh (52%), Uttar Pradesh (47.3), and West Bengal (43%). All these states are relatively agriculturally backward as compared to other regions. In the case of other states Gujarat is having 44% in spite of higher growth. Kerala is still having 29% in spite of education and low poverty. The latest National Family Health Survey projected that almost 50 per cent of Indian’s children had stunted growth. At the same time as a large number of people, nearly 100 million people (11% of Indian population) in India are over-nourished. Over-nutrition can be defined as consuming either too much calories or the wrong types of calories such as saturated fat, trans fat or highly refined sugar which leads to obesity and many other chronic diseases. For example, there are over 30 million people with diabetics in 1985 and by 2011 their number increased to more than 50 million diabetics. India is hence considered as the country with the largest population of diabetics. This diabetes (diabetes mellitus) is one of the diseases closely associated with overweight. The direct cause of overweight in India is largely due to lack of physical activity because of to sedentary life style, loss of traditional diet, faulty diet, high stress etc.
Dr.C.Murukadas, The Times of India, Aug.30,2012