 (8).png)
4 days ago
3
ARTICLE AD BOX
Summary
India’s latest family health survey, NFHS-6, shows rising adult obesity while a large share of children lack nutrition. As diet-driven health risks rise across the country, it’s time to deploy farm-sector reforms to tackle a key food-supply imbalance.
Findings of the sixth round of India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6) conducted in 2023-24 were released recently.
On some counts, our progress has been remarkable, thanks partly to government efforts. Health insurance coverage expanded to about 60% of households in 2023-24 from just over 40% back in 2019-21, for example, and about 83% of children under 2 years of age have been fully vaccinated, compared to about 77% earlier.
What glares out, however, is its portrait of a country that’s still underfed to an alarmingly large extent even as growing obesity signals a heavier health burden.
Nearly one-third of children under five remain underweight for their age and almost one-fifth too thin for their height.
Meanwhile, our rate of adult obesity—defined as a body mass index of over 25—has risen to nearly 31% from 24% among women and just over 27% from under 23% for men. Clearly, Indian nutrition demands attention.
The World Health Organization (WHO), whose standards the NFHS uses for children’s nutrition profiles, classifies being too thin or light as signs of undernutrition. This is one form of malnutrition, defined by the UN agency as “deficiencies, excesses, or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients.”
The latter two kinds differ, as they result in weight gain and health hazards. In recent years, critics of such datasets have argued for criteria that take genetic variation into account, but while advances in genomic science could give us a sharper picture, long-tracked trends need not be perfectly accurate to be useful as indicators.
Nor are trends drawn from NFHS data any surprise, given India’s stage of development.
As globally observed, adult obesity bears a link with inadequate nourishment in childhood. As the WHO puts it, “Inadequate infant growth due to poor nutrition leads to under-nutrition in children in many low- and middle-income countries, which, if followed later in life by an increased intake of calories, can result in… obesity.”
Many countries in the throes of economic and nutritional transitions face this ‘double burden of malnutrition,’ with access to cheap ultra-processed edibles playing a worrisome role.
While early-age deprivation can pose health risks later in life, India’s baseline dietary divergence is driven by income disparity. Yet, even an economy that emerges more equitably may not suffice to secure healthy diets.
The government’s Poshan Abhiyan against malnutrition has allied schemes like mid-day school meals and free foodgrain handouts to go with it. Public efforts also aim to tackle deficiencies like iron and iodine.
But balanced diets across the country require family education, individual discipline and food-supply adaptation. Demand for protein- and fibre-rich nutrients has grown along with household incomes, but their supply has struggled to keep up.
For legacy reasons and logistical ease, the bulk of our food output is skewed in favour of carbohydrates; think of staples like rice and wheat. A farm sector dominated by the state has long distorted incentives for farmers, many of whom would rather grow what the Centre procures—at politically set ‘support’ prices—than what the market asks for or what people’s diets need.
What’s subsidized and cheaply supplied shapes much of what we eat by altering relative costs. Even processed foods that sell in high volumes display a distinct carbs skew. To better align what we produce with our nutritional needs, India’s agricultural sector should be overhauled before it’s too late.
English (US) ·