Global Nutrition Report 2021

Why in news?

• India has made no progress on anaemia and childhood wasting according to the 2021 Global Nutrition Report (GNR, 2021) released Nov 23, 2021. 

About the report:

• The Global Nutrition Report was conceived following the first Nutrition for Growth Initiative Summit (N4G) in 2013.
• The report is the world’s leading independent assessment of the state of global nutrition. It provides a concise data-focused update on the state of diets and nutrition in the world.

Released by: ??

• It is a multi-stakeholder initiative, consisting of a Stakeholder Group, Independent Expert Group and Report Secretariat.

Key findings with respect to India:

• Anaemia:
  • ??Over half of Indian women in the age group 15-49 years are anaemic.
  • There has also been a rise in anaemic Indian women since 2016.
  • In 2016, 52.6% of Indian women were anaemic. But in 2020, 53% were found to be anaemic.
• Childhood Wasting:
  • India has made no progress or is worsening on reducing ‘childhood wasting’. Over 17% of Indian children under 5 years of age are affected by wasting. This figure is much higher than the average for Asia, where close to 9% of children are affected. Wasting refers to children whose weight is low-for-their height.
• Stunting:
  • India is ‘on course’ to meet the target for stunting.
  • But over 34% of children under 5 years of age are still affected.
  • This figure is higher than average for Asia, where close to 22% are affected by stunting. Stunting is when a child has a low height for their age.
• Global Nutrition Targets:
  • India is ‘off-course’ in meeting 7 of the 13 global nutrition targets. These include sodium intake, raised blood pressure (both men and women), obesity (both men and women) and diabetes (both men and women).
• Obesity:
  • Some 6.2% of adult (aged 18 years and over) women and 3.5% of adult men are living with obesity in the country. In fact, no country in the world was ‘on course’ to achieve the target for obesity.
• Breastfeeding:
  • India is ‘on course’ to meet the target for ‘exclusive breastfeeding’. Some 58% of infants in the age group 0-5 months are exclusively breastfed in India.

PRELIMS QUESTION

With reference to ‘Global Nutrition Report’, consider the following statements:

1. It was conceived following the first Nutrition for Growth Initiative Summit (N4G) in 2013.

2. It is published by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer