No doubt India has climbed the ladder of ease of doing business; it is home to the largest number of malnourished children in the world. Country needs to frame policies with a focus on reducing health and social inequities. The study conducted by premier industrial body Assocham exposes the starkest reality of development today what we talk about. No doubt over the decade, there has been an overall reduction in the infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate, yet the country is housing about 50 per cent of undernourished children of the world. On the contrary urban India is faced with the challenge of over nutrition making India as the third most obese nation after the US and China and also the diabetes capital of the world, with about 69.2 million people living with it as per the 2015 data by World Health Organisation. This inequality in access is accentuated by the stark state level disparity in nutritional status. In the age bracket of 1-5 years, the prevalence of underweight children ranged from 42 per cent in Jharkhand, followed by Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh with 37 per cent, 36 per cent and 34.1 per cent respectively, to 14.1 per cent in Manipur. The report found that the prevalence of stunting ranged from 50.4 per cent in Uttar Pradesh to 19.4 per cent in Kerala. Arunachal Pradesh had the highest levels of wasting at 19 per cent and Sikkim had the lowest level with 5 per cent. The policies need to focus on reducing health and social inequities within populations, raising educational attainment and providing Water, Sanitation and Hygiene or call it WASH facilities as well as secured jobs to ensure access to services. Programmes and policies that aim to address this nutrition burden present a double-win situation, the report highlighted. India continues to consume non-nutritious, non-balanced food either in the form of under nutrition, over nutrition or micronutrient deficiencies. The availability of nutritious food in markets plays an equally significant role in motivating the community to make the right choices which is what we lack compared to some of the developed and developing countries in the world.
