The key indicators of health and nutrition from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey, conducted in 2019-’20, paint a discon...
The key indicators of health and nutrition from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey, conducted in 2019-’20, paint a disconcerting picture. Gains in child nutrition, reflected in the previous rounds, conducted in 2005-’06 and 2015-’16, have been reversed in several states. With the pandemic and the economic crisis, nutritional indicators are likely to worsen further.
Between 2015-’16 and 2019-’20, stunting in children under five increased in six of the 10 large states – Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Telangana and West Bengal. Stunting, or low height-for-age, is considered an indicator of cumulative nutritional deficiencies from conception, and of the long-term health of the child. Child wasting, or low weight-for-height, and being underweight, or low weight-for-age, reflect more short-term nutritional deficiencies. These indicators also worsened or remained unchanged in seven of these 10 states.
The trends are in line with the indications of rising rural poverty and food insecurity that emerged in the National Sample Survey Organisation’s 2017-’18 survey on consumer expenditure, which has now been buried. The data in the survey showed a fall in real food expenditure in rural areas between 2011-’12 and 2017-’18 – a trend seen for the first time in 40 years. During this period, the real wages of regular...
