Malnourished, stunted and wasted, can this be India’s Demographic Dividend?

[ZeEa5KPul]

Should start a program distributing free cereal bars fortified with protein and vitamins.

It would cost a lot of rupees bit well worth it.

No, no, no. Who needs Communist nutrition? Let them eat freedom.

 

[Microsoft]

Why would I be ashamed of an Indian flag when I'm not an Indian citizen? I was born in Canada, live in Canada and am a Canadian citizen. I don't believe in patriotism or displaying flags, it's just the way this forum is set up you are asked your country of citizenship and current location and the flag of that country is displayed. I take no pride in any flag.

Having said that, why is it shameful to display the Indian flag and not the Pakistani flag? As I recall, Pakistan lost every war it fought with India, so shouldn't it be shameful to display the Pakistani flag (going by your logic)?

Only a true moron would associate a country's character strictly to wars.
Can't say I'm surprised Mr. Kumar.

P.S. that's not my logic, that's what you want to believe I said lmao.

 

[Mirzali Khan]

"Worlds biggest democracy"

 

[CIA Mole]

Why would I be ashamed of an Indian flag when I'm not an Indian citizen? I was born in Canada, live in Canada and am a Canadian citizen. I don't believe in patriotism or displaying flags, it's just the way this forum is set up you are asked your country of citizenship and current location and the flag of that country is displayed. I take no pride in any flag.

Having said that, why is it shameful to display the Indian flag and not the Pakistani flag? As I recall, Pakistan lost every war it fought with India, so shouldn't it be shameful to display the Pakistani flag (going by your logic)?

Lol do Canadians see you as canadian?

I was born in the US, but I've pretty much been a terrorist since 9/11.

 

[Cherub786]

Lol do Canadians see you as canadian?

Good question. Now that I think of it I can't really answer. You see I don't really have any White Canadian friends and don't interact or socialize with them much. I can only assume that when they see me they perceive me as a foreigner. I am visibly Muslim, with skullcap, thobe, and shawl, and carry my tasbih with me most times. These days our mosques have been closed by the government health authority, and so I find myself going out for walks more often. Sometimes Canadian people say "salaam alaikum" to me. I don't consider them my people but I have developed a soft corner for them, especially White people. I think White people are the most beautiful and polite people in the world.

 

[GS Zhou]

But the Indian people have the voting rights, who can buy them food and drinks every five years!! That's why they are so proud of their democrazy system; without the food and drinks from the voting-selling, their hunger situation (already the world worst) will become even worse.

What Indian voters buy with ‘bribes’ just before elections: Booze, good food & clothes

The IIM-Bengaluru and University of Kent study looked at consumption patterns of households in major states before & after elections and found a spike in the expenditure on some key items ahead of the vote.

theprint.in

According to the research, the voting-bribe amount in India, is equivalent to 9% of its GDP. I would strongly suggest India to change its election to once every week, the more frequent the election, the more GDP created by the bribe money. This may be the fastest way for it to achieve the "5 trillion economy" target.

 

[Uguduwa]

No, no, no. Who needs Communist nutrition? Let them eat freedom.

India is more communist than China.

 

[lonelyman]

Malnourished, stunted and wasted, can this be India’s Demographic Dividend?
Veena S Rao, Dr R Shankar,
NOV 05 2020, 00:24 IST

India is proud of its current demography -- 67.3% of our population is between 15 and 59 years of age, a demographic advantage that will continue for at least another three decades. This we believe is a great powerhouse for economic growth and our aspirations of becoming a world power – our demographic dividend.

Let us take a look at what sort of a powerhouse it actually is. Findings from a succession of reports during this decade -- NNMB 3rd Repeat Survey (2012), NFHS 4, 2015-16, NNMB Technical Report Number 27, 2017, continuously record that at least 40% of our population of all age groups has a huge dietary deficit, covering protein, calories and micronutrients, as compared with Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for Indians.

The situation among children below six years, our future demographic dividend, is even worse. Stunting, wasting and anaemia rates are high and a mere 14.3% infants below two years receive adequate diets necessary for proper physical and cognitive growth, meaning thereby that 85.7% children in India will never achieve their complete physical and cognitive potential, will have lower immunity, higher infections, and permanent stunting. Scientific evidence establishes that inadequate nutrition among infants below three years, which is a period of rapid growth of their brain cells, can result in slower and lesser development of cognitive ability.

As for school children and adolescents, our intermediate demographic dividend, high rates of undernutrition, anaemia and micronutrient deficiency again result in slower physical growth, reduced ability to learn, play and do physical work. This translates into poor numeracy and learning ability, and lower educational achievement as they grow, school dropouts, lesser ability to acquire professional skills and lower-income generation capacity as they enter the workforce. Additionally, undernourished adolescent girls become undernourished and anaemic mothers, thereby completing the intergenerational cycle of undernutrition and poverty.


What about adults, our present demographic dividend? Dietary deficit, Chronic Energy Deficiency (CED) and anaemia result in reduced energy to work and earn, quick fatigue, lower earnings and a permanent poverty trap. The body systems of such adults become programmed to function in scarcity, creating a negative balance where muscles don’t build and existing muscles become thinner. This adversely affects protective mechanisms of the body and reduces immunity and life expectancy.


The late Prof RW Fogel, Nobel laureate, has explained the consequences of dietary deficit in the simplest and most lucid manner in his paper, The Conquest of High Mortality and Hunger in Europe and America, 1990, “The First Law of Thermodynamics applies as strictly to the human engine as to mechanical engines. Since the overwhelming share of calories consumed among malnourished populations is required for BMR and essential maintenance, it is quite clear that in energy-poor populations such as those of Europe during the second half of 18th century, the typical individual in the labour force had relatively small amounts of energy available for work.” This logic of 18th century Europe very aptly applies to the energy situation of our workforce in India today.

This Dietary Deficit is compounded by an Information Deficit at household level, especially among the lower-income families about what are balanced diets, why they are important, and how to have the most balanced diet within their family budgets. Every village in India has valuable and affordable greens, vegetables and local fruits, but they do not form part of the diets of the agricultural or construction labourers. Apart from poverty and ignorance, their diets, which normally consist of watery dal and roti/rice in the morning, and the same in the evening, are also rigidly governed by custom, generational tradition and taboos.

Finally, we have an inequitable Market Deficit for affordable, fortified energy food which can be consumed by children, adolescents and adults in lower-income families to bridge their dietary deficit. While the market has stacks of expensive fortified energy food and beverages for higher-income groups, there is nothing affordable for low-income groups except junk kurkuras and chips costing Rs 5. It is perfectly possible to produce a low-cost nutritive fortified energy food for children within Rs 5 from wheat, defatted soya, green gram and ragi malt, providing around 380 calories from 25 grams.

A feasibility study conducted through KPMG in 2018 under the Karnataka Multi-sectoral Nutrition Pilot Project, calculates a market demand of 42 million tons of low-cost energy food per year, but strangely, no private entrepreneur wants to enter this field. One can only conclude that there is a quiet understanding between multinationals monopolising this market and our F&B sector, that this market vacuum for affordable energy food will not be disturbed and protein imperialism will continue. This, despite the firm finding in the feasibility study that there is a direct correlation between high incidence of low weight, stunting and wasting among children; low body mass index and stunting among adolescents, and lack of low-cost fortified energy food in the market.

So, how does India overcome this triple deficit to create a smart demographic dividend? First and foremost, by acknowledging the problem, and including it in the public policy domain, as an unaddressed goalpost for development. So far, this has not happened, either in the Niti Aayog, or the Poshan Abhiyaan, though the New Education Policy 2020 devotes some space to it.

Only after acknowledging the problem, and throwing it open to public debate, will the best innovative solutions emerge to overcome the triple deficit -- of reform and improved coverage by ICDS, new outcome-oriented interventions by our vast pool of women power through SHG groups and panchayats, who can be trained to work as village volunteers for spreading awareness and information, or even starting energy food production units under existing livelihood programmes, if our F&B sector continues to be inequitable. Finally, the mindset of policymakers and programmers, down to field workers and families, that subsistence diet equals food/nutrition security, must change.

Raising the diet of the people from subsistence level to a higher level of nourishment and overcoming the triple deficit is the only way that the health, education, skills, employability and earning capacity of our demographic dividend can improve. They are our greatest asset for building a new India, expanding our economy, raising our GDP, and becoming the world power that we aspire to be. We have started the process of creating smart cities and villages. We must now create our greatest asset -- the smart demographic dividend.

Malnourished, stunted and wasted, can this be India’s Demographic Dividend?

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