Visible Malnutrition – an alarming problem in India

Optimal nutrition in childhood is indispensable in meeting the demands of rapid growth and development of the body.
Malnutrition is defined as a condition when the body does not get the nutrients it needs for its proper growth and development and visible malnutrition includes undernutrition which can be visualized in the form of wasting n being too thin for their height), stunting and underweight.

Stunting, Wasting, Lower Than Normal Body Weight

• Stunting is visible in children that are too short for their age and has an underdeveloped brain, poor learning capacity, and increased nutrition-related diseases.
• Wasting is associated with decreased fat mass leading to muscle and fat tissue wasting away leading to children becoming too thin for their age.
• Underweight is calculated by the weight-for-age formula and is a bodyweight considered to be too low to be healthy. It can be a reflector of both stunting and wasting.

Other Visual Malnutrition Leading to Learning Difficulties

Visible malnutrition has also been associated with a lack of growth and low body weight, tiredness, lethargy, irritability, anxiety, slow behavioral and intellectual development, possibly resulting in learning difficulties (Castro-Vega et al., 2018).

Alarming Problem in India

• In India, around 95% of adolescents are accustomed to poor or unhealthy diets leading to one or the other form of malnutrition and over 50% of adolescents (about 63 million girls and 81 million boys) in the age group of 10 to 19 years in India are, short, thin, overweight or obese (UNICEF, 2019) and face an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease.
• Adolescent girls especially suffer multiple nutritional deprivations, more girls suffer from shortness than boys and anaemia affect 40% of adolescent girls, compared to 18% of boys.
• Hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes were also found in high intensity among Indian children.
• Among social groups, the prevalence of stunting is highest amongst children from the Scheduled Tribes (43.6 percent), followed by Scheduled Castes (42.5 percent) and Other Backwards Castes (38.6 percent).

Alarming Problem in the Various States

• The highest levels of stunting and underweight are found in the states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
• Prevalence of wasting is highest in Jharkhand (29.0%) and above the national average in eight more States (Haryana, Goa, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat) and three UTs (Puducherry, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli).
• Prevalence of underweight is also highest in Jharkhand (47.8%) and is above the National average in seven more States (Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar) and one UT (Dadra and Nagar Haveli) (FNSA 2019).

Sources:

Adolescents, Diets and Nutrition: Growing Well in a Changing World. UNICEF. 2019.
Changing face of malnutrition. World’s Children report. 2019. UNICEF.
The State of the World’s Children (SOWC) 2019. UNICEF
Castro-Vega, I., et al. (2018). Validation of nutritional screening Malnutrition Screening Tool compared to other screening tools and the nutritional assessment in different social and health areas. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29756969
The Food and Nutrition Security Analysis, India, 2019, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and The World Food Programme.