Fresh mapping shows 2 per cent kids severely malnourished against 19 per cent NFHS estimate; data validation under way

New Delhi, April 1

The proportion of severely acutely malnourished (SAM) children in India could be much lesser than previously estimated with the government in the process of engaging paediatricians to validate new findings that show lower numbers.

Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani informed Lok Sabha on Friday that out of one crore under-five children mapped on the WHO yardsticks of SAM, two per cent were found severely acute malnourished as against the National Family Health Survey estimate of 19 per cent.

Irani said the ministry last week signed an MoU with the Indian Academy of Paediatrics under which 30,000 paediatricians available across India would help validate the malnourishment data of children on the government’s POSHAN tracker which has real time data of height, weight of under-five children in the anganwari, ICDS system.

“In February, one crore children on POSHAN tracker were weighed and their height measured as per WHO malnutrition definitions and 2 per cent children were found affected by SAM as against 19 per cent NFHS data. Even so, this number is high. We are getting the latest SAM data validated by the IAP experts,” Irani said.

Severe acute malnutrition is defined by a very low weight for height (below -3z scores of the median WHO growth standards), by visible severe wasting, or by the presence of nutritional oedema.

India has been struggling with child under-nutrition challenges with the percentage of underweight, stunted and wasted under-five kids continuing to be high.

The burden of child malnutrition rose across a majority of the states covered in the first phase of National Family Health Survey-5, signalling losses for supplementary nutrition schemes of the Union and state governments.

Statistics showed that with the exception of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim, which managed marginal improvements in the nutrition status of under-5 kids compared to 2015, the remaining 19 states posted a greater burden of either one or two or all of the three markers of malnutrition—stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height) and underweight (low weight for age).

On an average, one in every three under-5 children in the 22 states reviewed by the Centre has been found to be stunted as of 2020, one in six wasted and one in four underweight.

Eight states reported a rise across all markers of child malnutrition compared to the 2015-16 data. These are HP, Kerala, Telangana, Bengal, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.

The highest percentage of stunted children in India is still in Bihar (42.9 pc), followed by Gujarat (39 pc) and Karnataka (35.4 pc). Some high-burden states like MP have not been covered in the NFHS phase-1 survey and will gradually be reviewed.