COLOMBO: India has about 48 per cent of undernourished children below five years, the largest in the world, according to a Unicef survey.
The survey, ‘Tracking progress on child and maternal nutrition _ A survival and development priority,’ that was released during the One Asia Breastfeeding Partners Forum on Saturday last, stated that due to high prevalence of malnutrition in combination with a large population, India alone had an estimated 61 million stunted children, accounting for every three out of 10 stunted children in the developing world.
China, which has about 12 million (15 per cent) of malnourished children, ranks second followed by Nigeria with 10 million (41 per cent). Pakistan with 9.86 million (42 per cent) and Indonesia with 7.68 million (37 per cent) malnourished children are in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Twenty-four countries account for more than 80 per cent of the global burden of chronic under-nutrition as measured by stunting (low height for age). Although India does not have the highest prevalence of stunted children, due to its large population, it has the greatest number of stunted children, Unicef said.
“Since 1990, stunting prevalence in the developing world has declined from 40 per cent to 29 per cent, a relative reduction of 28 per cent. Progress has been particularly notable in Asia, where prevalence dropped from 44 per cent around 1990 to 30 per cent around 2008. This reduction is influenced by marked decline in China,” the survey said.
“Malnutrition affects approximately 195 million children under five in the developing world with Africa and Asia having high stunting rates – 40 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively,” the report stated.
India ranked along with Timor-Leste, Yemen, Bangladesh and Nepal having about 43 per cent of children under-five who are moderately or severely underweight based on World Health Organisation’s Child Growth Standards, the report said.
The report says that India was among the 34 countries that has made insufficient progress to achieve the Millennium Development Goals 1 target of a 50 per cent reduction of underweight prevalence among children under 5 between 1990 and 2015.
Unicef added that only 23 per cent of women use iron-folic acid supplements while 66 per cent of infants are not weighed at birth in India. The report highlighted Vitamin A deficiency throughout India particularly in rural India, where about 62 per cent of preschool-age children are found deficient.
“Poverty, inequity, low maternal education and women’s social status are among the underlying factors that need to be taken into consideration and addressed in order to reduce under-nutrition in a sustained manner,” the report said.
Unicef quoting a study in India showed that women with higher autonomy (indicated by access to money and freedom to choose to go to the market) were significantly less likely to have a stunted child when compared with their peers who had less autonomy.