Child nutrition: India may be reversing decades of progress, show govt data (Business Standard)

Business Standard published an article stating that India could be seeing an increase in child undernutrition, reversing decades of gains. If the all-India rates of child stunting were to rise, as the Phase-I data indicate, this would represent the first increase in child stunting since 1998-99. Variables including mother’s nutrition, sanitation, child’s weight at birth, and infant nutrition play a role in stunting; hence increases in stunting are not necessarily a referendum on the health or nutrition policies of the current government. Senior Research Fellow Purnima Menon, in a long interview, cautioned, “But it’s not good news,” and stunting of children born between 2015 and 2019 likely reflected, in part, the economic slowdown of the last few years. I think what we are seeing right now is the impact of the economic slowdown of the last few years and some of those economic shocks that were experienced.  I don’t think there is a single country anywhere in the world where child stunting has gone down without economic growth.” Bloomberg Quint.