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kinhthuoxin2001
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In the 75th year of Independence, India has a lot to rejoice about and a lot to reflect on. We have overcome two crushing Covid-19 waves. However, more than four lakh people have died from the disease. Thousands of children have been orphaned and thousands more are suffering from a lack of basic facilities. Of all the problems confronting the youth, nutritional insecurity is the worst, holding the power to cripple the future of an entire generation. A recent UNICEF report stated that nearly 12 lakh children could die in low-income countries in the next six months due to a decrease in routine health services and an increase in wasting. Nearly three lakh such children would be from India — nearly as much as the countrywide death toll from Covid-19. If this challenge has to be mitigated, India must use the pandemic as an opportunity to come up with long-term multi-stakeholder solutions to the problem of nutrition in the country.
The National Family Health Survey (NFHS 5) indicates that since the onset of the pandemic, acute undernourishment in children below the age of five has worsened, with one in every three children below the age of five suffering from chronic malnourishment. According to the latest data, 37.9 per cent of children under five are stunted, and 20.8 per cent are wasted — a form of malnutrition in which children are too thin for their height. This is much higher than in other developing countries where, on average, 25 per cent of children suffer from stunting and 8.9 per cent are wasted. Inadequate dietary intake is the most direct cause of undernutrition. This, however, is the most obvious cause of the problem. Several other factors also affect nutritional outcomes, such as contaminated drinking water, poor sanitation, and unhygienic living conditions.