GLOBAL NUTRITION REPORT

WHY IN NEWS?

India’s performance in the recently released Global Nutrition Report 2020 was not very satisfactory.

ABOUT GLOBAL NUTRITION REPORT

• The Global Nutrition Report was conceived following the first Nutrition for Growth Initiative Summit (N4G) in 2013 as a mechanism for tracking the commitments made by 100 stakeholders spanning governments, aid donors, civil society, the UN and businesses.

• The Stakeholder Group guides the commissioning and development of the Global Nutrition Report. This group comprises high-level members of government, donor organisations, civil society, multilateral organisations and the business sector.
• Selected from nominations submitted to the Stakeholder Group, the Independent Expert Group is responsible for the Global Nutrition Report’s data, analysis and conclusions, and is accountable for the quality and independence of its content.

WHERE INDIA STANDS?

• India is identified as among the three worst countries, along with Nigeria and Indonesia, for steep within-country disparities on stunting, where the levels varied four-fold across communities.
• Underweight in India: Between 2000 and 2016, rates of underweight have decreased from 66.0% to 58.1% for boys and 54.2% to 50.1% in girls. However, this is still high compared to the average of 35.6% for boys and 31.8% for girls in Asia.
• Stunted and wasted:9% of children under 5 years are stunted and 20.8% are wasted, compared to the Asia average of 22.7% and 9.4% respectively.
• Anaemia: One in two women of reproductive age is anaemic, while at the same time the rate of overweight and obesity continues to rise, affecting almost a fifth of the adults, at 21.6% of women and 17.8% of men.