Minister of Women and Child Development informed parliament recently that the status of malnutrition (stunting, wasting, and underweight) in the country amongst children under 5 years is provided by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted periodically by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoH&FW).
As per NFHS-5 (2019-21), among children under 5 years of age, Stunting stands at 35.5%, while Wasting is at 19.3% and Underweight at 32.1% respectively. It is around national level as far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned.
Stunting, experts believe, has lifelong consequences on human capital, poverty and equity. It leads to less potential in education and fewer professional opportunities.
To address various policy and systemic gaps, the minister says the ICDS and Anganwadi Services schemes have been re-evaluated by the Ministry in respect of programme design, implementation process, outcome and impact and for re-assessing the relevance of the programme in achieving its aims and goals.
The Minister also informed that a paradigm shift has been undertaken for the first time for improving nutritional norms and standards, quality and testing of Take-Home Ration (not raw ration), promoting greater stakeholder participation, re-enforcing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity around traditional community food habits and by improving digital infrastructure support for last-mile tracking and monitoring of nutrition delivery.
Besides, there are efforts underway under the Supplementary Nutrition Programme under Anganwadi Services and POSHAN Abhiyaan, the Minister said.
While such efforts shall be continued, there is need to address the challenges of malnutrition in children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers thoroughly so as to nurture health, wellness and immunity.
Timely nutritional interventions of breastfeeding, age-appropriate complementary feeding, full immunisation, and Vitamin A supplementation, which have proven effective in improving outcomes in children, need to be ensured. It is well recognised that most of the growth faltering occurs during six months to two years when complementary feeding plays a significant role in addressing nutrition intake by a child. All the stakeholders must ensure better supplements. Effective monitoring and implementation of various programmes as well as critically evaluating various aspects need to be taken to address malnutrition and prioritising the reduction of child undernutrition in overall context.
While improving nutrition and managing stunting continue to be challenging, it can be addressed with an inter-sectoral strategy. Efforts must be made in this direction for better outcomes.
