NEW DELHI: Malnut-rition rates among Indian children are among the world’s highest and cause stunted growth in about half of children under five years, researchers quoting their study in the Lancet medical journal said yesterday.
These children account for one-third of the global population of stunted children, Robert Black, the lead author of a series of papers published in the Lancet this year, said in New Delhi.
“Undernourished children are more likely to become short adults and to give birth to smaller babies,” Black, who is from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said.
“Stunting in the first two years leads to irreversible damage into adult life,” he said.
There is much debate in India over the country’s level of poverty, with many critics saying that indices like malnutrition remained far too high for a trillion-dollar economy that has been booming in recent years.
Undernourished children also face developmental problems that will deter them socially and economically as they grow older, the researchers said.
They said proper breastfeeding for the first two years of a child’s life and adequate vitamin supplements in food could help in reversing the problem.
Indian government officials said they were worried by the impact.
“We need to do more as a country because of the long-term consequences of undernourishment and we are not doing enough now,” M K Bhan, secretary of the department of biotechnology in India said.
In India, distribution of subsidised food for poor people through the government has miserably failed, officials say, with nearly one-third or even half of the food meant for poorest of the poor siphoned off by corrupt officials.
“We need to give food security to people,” Bhan said.
He said if malnutrition was not addressed by the age of two, children become vulnerable to diabetes and heart conditions as adults.
“When Coca-Cola can infiltrate every village of this country, I can’t see why this knowledge can’t get to the people,” Bhan said.
Researchers said women, especially pregnant women, were not getting enough nourishment.
“One-third of all boys and girls are undernourished because the mother is undernourished,” added Purnima Menon of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Another factor contributing to malnutrition is the spiralling food prices.
The price of rice and wheat has doubled under the worldwide pinch. Poor households are consuming one less meal or substituting expensive ingredients, David Toole, regional director of Unicef South Asia, said.
“When food prices double we have a near perfect storm affecting children in poverty,” Toole said. In India and other countries in South Asia, “we are seeing increasing rates of malnutrition in the past several months in mostly western and midwestern areas. These are the poor areas.”
Toole said the higher food prices will persist for years since Asian economies have shifted their focus from agriculture to manufacturing.
“This is a problem that is not going away. It is likely to continue for a couple of years, and children will take the brunt of this,” he said.– Agencies