According to the Global Hunger Index 2018, atleast one in five Indian children under the age of five are wasted, which means they have extremely low weight for their height, reflecting acute under-nutrition.
• The only country with a higher prevalence of child wasting is the war-torn nation of South Sudan.
• Overall, India has been ranked at 103 out of 119 countries in the Index, with hunger levels in the country categorised as “serious”.
• India’s ranking has dropped three places from last year.
• The report notes that wasting rates are highest for infants aged 0 to 5 months.
• Child wasting is high across South Asia, constituting a “critical public health emergency”, according to UN organisations. Child wasting in the region is associated with a low maternal body mass index, suggesting the need for a focus on the nutritional status of the mother during pregnancy. Factors that could reduce child stunting in South Asia include increased consumption of non-staple foods, access to sanitation, women’s education, access to safe water, gender equality, and national food availability.
Details:
Four main indicators are used to calculate hunger levels.
• The first indicator is undernourishment, which is the share of the population which is undernourished and reflects insufficient caloric intake.
• The next three indicators use data for children under five: child wasting (low weight for height), reflecting acute under-nutrition; child stunting (low height for age), reflecting chronic under-nutrition; and child mortality.
• India has shown improvement in three of the indicators over the comparable reference years.
• The percentage of undernourished people in the population has dropped from 18.2% in 2000 to 14.8% in 2018.
• The child mortality rate has halved from 9.2% to 4.3%, while child stunting has dropped from 54.2% to 38.4% over the same period.
• However, the prevalence of child wasting has actually worsened in comparison to previous reference years. It stood at 17.1% in 2000, and increased to 20% in 2005. In 2018, it stands at 21%. South Sudan’s child wasting prevalence is at 28%.
• Globally, the level of hunger still falls into the “serious” category, despite improvement over the last two decades.
• The Index projects that at the current rate of progress, 50 countries will fail to reach the “low” hunger category by 2030. This puts the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 2, which aims to end hunger by 2030, in jeopardy.
