What child stunting numbers tell us about north-east Indian states (India Spend)

India Spend published an article writing that stunting among children aged below five has increased in four northeastern Indian states, a trend not observed in the region over the last 15 years, according to the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey, 2019-20, released in December 2020. Causes for the varying performance in addressing stunting will become clearer when NFHS-5 reports on disaggregated data on access to services and releases indicators for different social groups later this year. According to an IFPRI study, between 2006 and 2016, Sikkim consistently improved the contextual determinants of nutrition, with respect to women’s access to education, women’s age of marriage, and household access to basic amenities. Women’s nutrition emerged as a key area to prioritize; for instance, low women’s BMI explained almost a fifth of the difference between high- and low-burden stunting districts in India, showed another IFPRI study assessing the geographical burden of stunting in India. The latter study also suggests that other variables on women’s well-being like education, age at marriage, and education explain close to half the difference between low and high stunting districts in India.