All states in South Asia, especially India need to put much greater focus on tackling malnutrition.
Malnutrition: India beats sub-Saharan Africa
**India has the highest number of malnourished children in the world, with Madhya Pradesh being the worst-affected state. About 47% of under-fives, numbering 57 million are underweight. Even sub-Saharan Africa is better off, where 33% of the children are malnourished. **These shocking figures have been revealed in Unicef’s Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition, released globally on Tuesday. The worst-affected states in India are UP, Rajasthan, Orissa, Bihar and Maharastra. Over 50% of children in some of these states are malnourished. However, some Indian states maintaining high rates of nourishment among children include Goa, Kerala, Mizoram and Tamil Nadu. The report says 27% of children in South Asian countries - around 146 million - are to be underweight, many to a life-threatening degree. More than half these children live in just three countries - Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
And the reason for South Asia’s pitiful performance - poor food quality, low social status of women and early marriage leading to low birth weight, bad quality hygiene and high rate of illiteracy. Speaking exclusively to TOI, a day before the release of the India section of the report card, Unicef India’s chief of child development and nutrition programme, Werner Schultink, said no other country was worse off than India in the case of malnourished children. “The causes for this are many: bad quality feeding, population density, high rate of infectious diseases, high rate of illiteracy among women, high prevalence of gender inequality, low rate of immunisation and high rate of birth of underweight babies,” he said. Schultink said it the fact that malnutrition had fallen from 70% in 1970s to 47% now is testimony to India’s commitment. He added that policymakers must realise that it does not take complicated interventions to make an important impact. All they have to do is ensure mothers feed newborns on breast milk for six months from birth, reduce infectious diseases, specially diarrhoea and malaria, counsel mothers on better infant care.
This is one of the indicators among several that come out almost weekly.
Bharat has in fact improved quite bit. However when it comes to food and nutrition, Pakistan is way ahead in the region. No matter what a Commie leftie agency says in that regard.
Bharat has in fact improved quite bit. However when it comes to food and nutrition, Pakistan is way ahead in the region. No matter what a Commie leftie agency says in that regard.
From what the report says sub-Saharan Africa seems to be better in tackling malnutrition than India. That is very telling.
As the saying goes "All that glitters is not gold"... well what is glittering may be gold but there is lots of "not-gold" around it. Around all the bustling metropoiltan growth lie slums, population in rural areas is still at same poverty level, but now THAT poverty level is getting exposed because of the focus India is getting these days due to "growth and growth". India needs to do something to distribute wealth to different regions otherwise the "polarisation" of rich and poor could result dangerously against India.
India can boast of the second fastest growing economy in the world after China, but in terms of malnutrition among children, India today found itself ranked with Ethiopia. About 57 million children in India are malnourished and make up a third of the world’s 146 million undernourished children, said a new Unicef report released today. India’s child malnutrition rate of 47 per cent is the same as that in Ethiopia, it said. The report said South Asia has “staggeringly high” levels of underweight children and India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan together account for half of the world’s undernourished children under five. “Malnutrition is the underlying cause of half of the 2.1 million annual child deaths in India,” said Cecilio Adorna, Unicef’s representative in India. “It’s not the lack of food, but lack of knowledge that is hindering progress,” Adorna said.
According to Unicef, half of all children under the age of three in India are underweight and a quarter are born with a low birth weight. The report also said that one in three women in India is underweight and is therefore, at the risk of delivering babies with low weight. “Correct breast feeding and complementary feeding could have a huge impact,” Adorna said. Experts say malnutrition could be reduced by making available good maternal care, ensuring that infants are exclusively breast fed for the first six months, and adding complementary foods after six months while infants are still breast fed. While most infants in India are initially breast fed, only 37 per cent of infants are exclusively breast fed for four months. And, Unicef said, less than half the population follows good child care and feeding practices in India. Adorna said that while there is evidence in India of “strong political will and commitment” to tackle malnutrition, “the slip between the cup and the lip is implementation and accountability”. Malnutrition in India declined by an annual 0.8 per cent between 1992 and 1998. While the report has acknowledged this as “modest improvements”, it warned that the progress was “insufficient”. But several community-based projects, including one in Bengal, show that significant improvements are possible through appropriate collaborative efforts involving state governments and international agencies. The “Ken Parbo Na” project in Bengal, for instance, spread across four districts — South 24-Parganas, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad and Purulia — helped reduce malnutrition from 59 per cent to 48 per cent in three years. The project involved teaching mothers of malnourished children techniques to prepare complementary food and how to breast feed.
And I though Pak was a failed state.. Report from just one Indian state, had this happned in Pak hell would break lose it would be all over the media, Great democrats will leave no oportunity to belittle govt.
Around 80,000 children in Madhya Pradesh are suffering from severe malnutrition. So stark is the situation that one evaluation report has said that even if the children were saved, they may go blind due to lack of vitamin A.
Aren't you putting news here from media only... or you are getting selectively sensitive..
Above most of the news above is from Indian Newspapers and websites, that indicates how openly India is accepting it..
Acceptance of a problem is first step towards solving it... Issue mentioned above are again operational..
1. It’s not the lack of food, but lack of knowledge that is hindering progress,” Adorna said.
Indian media only reports the tip of the iceberg, The real problems are far bigger, If a wealthy state has massive starvation deaths how about poor states...
What other source would be there for people “outside” India to find out? I don’t see this as “India accepting it”, I see media putting the news forward, is “government” admitting it and taking steps? or are the steps taken by NGOs?
How convenient....another thread for India bashing...you guys perenially need to reassure yourselves that India is so pathetic etc etc...bhaijaan...Indians who live in India dont get so easily fooled (after all many of them are sly, manipulative Hindu baniyass) by the glowing tributes to growing India etc...all these aspects impact their daily life and thats one of the key reasons why the "India Shining" campaign of BJP flopped and they got voted out...but of course you are not interested in what really happens...You want to delude yourselves into believing that things are completely hopeless in India..go on...who can stop you..
i am not saying that india has met all the development parameters like malnutrition as it has been stated here. But, the GDP growth rates are healthy. And also, In one area there is huge progress whereas in others it is exactly opposite. I hope the government has chalked out all strategies to bring improvement.
The Indian papers which have reported this shocking report have largely only repeated it only verbatim. Malnutrition in India is worse than all it's neighbours, but also the poorest region of the world - sub-saharan Africa, and the Indian government and polity should be making noises on this at this moment.
Look! it is natural to hide ones shame. Bharati media or government would like to keep this matter hidden while pointing to GDP growth. And they may have a point.
Similary, the other report on "failed state" index hurt us really bad. Our government and the rest of us are trying really hard to deflect that kind of label.
None of these indices (malnutrition or failed state etc.) should be looked at in isolation. These are important indicators that need serious analysis by the impacted country.
However the overall emphasis should be on developing infrastructure (motorways, dams, and ports). The rest of the issues will automatically get resovled over time.
No doubt India have to go a long way, but there are scheems that are implemented by state and federal govtments that are not reaching the needy. Its mainly due to a bad beurocracy and curruption.
"india shining" was a term used by the NDA government for the election campaign. It didn't work by the way. Majority of indians themselves clearly rejected this.
Besides Mr.abdali, which indian is saying that india is a developed country?....this very report of malnutrition was published by "times of india", an indian 'english' newpaper read usually by rich and middle class indians...you blaming indian media is clearly unjustified.
1) 50 million female infanticide
2) 800 million defecate out in the open because no infratstucture
3) Water quality, drinking and availability the worse in the world
4) Biggest slums in the universe build after the Brits left
5) Mass suicides and starvation deaths
And this is just the tip of the iceberge, don't expect much from Indian media because they are too busy reporting on Pak.