42 percent of Indian children under 5 malnourished

[beijingwalker]

42 percent of Indian children under 5 malnourished
AP – 13 mins ago

NEW DELHI (AP) — Forty-two percent of children in India younger than 5 are underweight and nearly 60 percent are stunted, a new survey found.

The Hunger and Malnutrition Survey monitored over 100,000 children in 112 districts across nine states in the country from October 2010 to February of last year.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released the report Tuesday and called child malnutrition the country's shame.

India's economy has boomed, with growth over the last few years averaging about 8 percent, but the country's development indicators continue to be abysmal.

Singh released a summary of the report's findings and more details on its findings were not yet available.

The survey conducted by a group of non-profits was the largest such study since 2004, when the Indian government had surveyed child malnutrition. It was the first study by the group so comparative numbers are not available.

UNICEF's latest data say one-third of the world's malnourished children younger than 3 lives in India, a rate worse than sub-Saharan Africa.

42 percent of Indian children under 5 malnourished - Yahoo! News

 

[prabhakar]

This is indeed shameful. I hope the new Food security bill will improve the situation.

 

[IndoCarib]

already posted in India defence section

 

[AHMED85]

Ek Machar Aadmi Ko HiJda Bana Deta Hai! BY BLGURJAR - YouTube

 

[Adnan Faruqi]

Two points:

1. The malnutrition yardstick is not perfect, one have to research about how international bodies adopted this as universal yardstick whit the small sample date of 5-6 countries.

2. a.) Indian kids who have malnutrition many of them are not due to poverty but due to wrong way of calculating it.

b.) Due to dietary preferences of some communities in India.

There are some countries where people eat pork/dog/rat/lizard and what not but in India some communities apart from not eating meat they even have food taboos in the vegetarian foods like Brahmins don't eat garlic, onion or Jains don't eat garlic, onion, potato, carrot, reddish etc.

 

[rama]

sad but true

 

[IndoCarib]

Two points:

1. The malnutrition yardstick is not perfect, one have to research about how international bodies adopted this as universal yardstick whit the small sample date of 5-6 countries.

2. a.) Indian kids who have malnutrition many of them are not due to poverty but due to wrong way of calculating it.

b.) Due to dietary preferences of some communities in India.

There are some countries where people eat pork/dog/rat/lizard and what not but in India some communities apart from not eating meat they even have food taboos in the vegetarian foods like Brahmins don't eat garlic, onion or Jains don't eat garlic, onion, potato, carrot, reddish etc.

You are right. More than poverty it is superstitions regarding diet which keeps children undernourished. In certain parts of India parents wait till first birthday to feed solid foods. By that time the child would have been deprived of essential nutrients so important for growth

 

[Omar1984]

Very sad

 

[Pakchina]

Shameful India. On one hand 42% of Indian children are malnourised and suffer of malnitrition while on the other hand India is purchasing billions of sophisticated weapons from the US and Israel enriching a happy few in India.