What's new

Starving in India: The Forgotten Problem

Something related, even though i don't entirely agree with the author , the below article gives some insights in properly determine undernourishment by not limiting to parameters like Height and weight. Especially tribal populations.

The child malnutrition myth


In the early 2000s, when the 55th (1999-2000) round of the expenditure survey showed a surprisingly sharp decline in poverty over its predecessor survey, the reform critics descended on the finding like a ton of bricks. Their critique eventually led to a healthy debate, important new research and eventual downward revision in poverty reduction numbers by the reform advocates themselves.

In total contrast, almost no objections have been raised to the absurdly high estimates of malnutrition in India trumpeted by journalists, NGOs, politicians and international institutions within and outside India. Not a day goes by without some TV channel or newspaper running the headline that the world's fastest growing economy suffers worse malnutrition than sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).In terms of vital statistics such as life expectancy at birth, infant mortality and maternal mortality, India fares better than all except one or two of the SSA countries with comparable or lower per capita incomes. So it is puzzling that, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics, it suffers from higher proportion of underweight children than every one of the 48 SSA countries and higher rate of stunting than all but seven of them. Such countries as the Central African Republic, Chad and Lesotho, which have life expectancy at birth of just 48 years compared with India's 65, have lower rates of stunting and underweight.

If you still do not believe the absurdity of these malnutrition numbers, compare Kerala and Senegal. Kerala exhibits vital statistics edging towards those in the developed countries: life expec-tancy of 74 years, infant mortality rate of 12 per 1,000 live births and maternal mortality rate of 95 per 1,00,000 live births. The corresponding figures for Senegal are far worse at 62, 51 and 410, respectively. But nutrition statistics say that Kerala has 25% stunted children compared to 20% of Senegal and 23% underweight children relative to 14.5% of the latter. In Punjab, which has a life expec-tancy of 70 years and is the breadbasket and milk dairy of India, 37% of children are stunted and 25% underweight.

To make sense of this nonsense, we must look at how the stunting (and underweight) rates are calculated. To classify a child of a given age and sex as stunted, we must compare his height to a pre-specified standard. The WHO sets this standard. In the early 2000s, it collected a sample of 8,440 children representing a population of healthy breastfed infants and young children in Brazil, Ghana, India, Norway, Oman and the United States. This "reference" population provided the basis for setting the standards.

As expected, when comparing children of a given age and sex even within this healthy sample, heights and weights differed. Therefore, some criterion was required to identify stunting and underweight among these children. In each group defined by age and sex, the WHO defined the bottom 2.14% of the children according to height as stunted. The height of the child at 2.14 percentile then became the standard against which children of the same age and sex in other populations were to be compared to identify stunting. A similar procedure applied to weight.

The key assumption underlying this methodology is that if properly nourished , all child populations would produce outcomes similar to the WHO reference population with just 2.14% of the children at the bottom stunted and underweight. Higher rates of stunting would indicate above normal malnutrition. So the million-dollar question is whether this assumption really holds for the population of children from which the estimate of half of Indian children being stunted is derived?

As it happens, the answer to the question can be found buried in a 2009 study published by the government of India. The latest estimate for stunting in India has been derived from the third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3). The report draws a highly restricted sample from the fuller NFHS-3 sample consisting of 'elite' children defined as those 'whose mothers and fathers have secondary or higher education, who live in households with electricity, a refrigerator, a TV and an automobile or truck, who did not have diarrhoea or a cough or fever in the two weeks preceding the survey, who were exclusively breastfed if they were less than five months old, and who received complementary foods if they were at least five months old'.

If the assumption that proper nutrition guarantees the same outcome as the WHO reference population is true, the proportion of stunted children in this sample should be 2.14%. But the study reports this proportion to be above 15%! The assumption is violated by a wide margin.

The implication of this and other facts is that Indian children are genetically smaller on average. A competing hypothesis - which says that nutrition improvements may take several generations - fails to explain how, without a genetic advantage, the far poorer SSA countries, which lag behind India in almost all vital statistics, could have pulled so far ahead of India in child nutrition. Moreover, the trend of the stunting proportions based on WHO standards, available for India since the late 1970s, would suggest that nearly all those born in the 1950s or before - the writer included - are stunted!

Either way, the statistic that half of Indian children today are stunted needs to be viewed far more sceptically and investigated more deeply. The right treatment requires a right diagnosis.
 
Something related, even though i don't entirely agree with the author , the below article gives some insights in properly determine undernourishment by not limiting to parameters like Height and weight. Especially tribal populations.

Some more statistics you may find appropriate:


According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, India has the highest number of street children in the world. There are no exact numbers, but conservative estimates suggest that about 18 million children live and labor in the streets of India’s urban centers. Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta each have an estimated street-children population of over 100,000. The total number of Child labor in India is estimated to be 60 million.

The level of child malnutrition in India is among the highest in the world, higher even than some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, says the report ‘Extent of Chronic Hunger and Malnutrition in India’ by the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food. While around 25 percent children globally were underweight, in India the number was 43 percent. A quarter of all neo-natal deaths in the world, (2.1 million) occurred in India, says UNICEF Report 2007 . More than one in five children who die within four weeks of birth is an Indian. Nearly fifty percent of Indian children who die before the age of five do not survive beyond the first 28 days.
 
Having visited india, and seen the poverty first hand, it is shocking to behold - brings tears to ones eyes.
 
Having visited india, and seen the poverty first hand, it is shocking to behold - brings tears to ones eyes.

Yes I can not stop crying when I hear these things. It is inhumane that the world turns a blind eye to children in this manner
 
Hafizz you know Indian members will get upset at anything that does not show India as incredible and shining. Very sad situation that the hungry and poor are forgotten
No. Otherwise we would have hidden the Public ration system for poor and BPL people. We would have never declared packages for poor states fighting to get out of it. We would have never accepted UKs fund to develop the states with relatively higher poor people percentage even though it's only in few millions. We don't hide or run from problems. But that doesn't mean you can bring us to your level. No offence intended. But common it's not complex Maths look around Pak and India. And tell it yourself
 
No. Otherwise we would have hidden the Public ration system for poor and BPL people. We would have never declared packages for poor states fighting to get out of it. We would have never accepted UKs fund to develop the states with relatively higher poor people percentage even though it's only in few millions. We don't hide or run from problems. But that doesn't mean you can bring us to your level. No offence intended. But common it's not complex Maths look around Pak and India. And tell it yourself

mate we are in the same boat I know neither country is incredible nor shining and these issues need to be addressed
 
More sensible comment. Appreciated :). Read all my posts I never said India is shingling or not having issues. But your haffiz dude is looking at India from Mars. Most of the percentage of starving people is from trible area. Government is trying hard for welfare of these people but dam naxals are disturbing the bet. It's good in their favour to keep people angry with government. In most of the states where area is easily acceable a single starvation death shake the fukking govt. so it's not that bad you think. On the other hand Pak is not having any control over their trible area. (That sounds worst to me. But I have never been to Pak and I don't think I will be anytime soon in future.) It's you people who have to look fro that. And about the beggers we all know the truth. Don't we
 
The level of child malnutrition in India is among the highest in the world, higher even than some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, says the report ‘Extent of Chronic Hunger and Malnutrition in India’ by the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food. While around 25 percent children globally were underweight, in India the number was 43 percent. A quarter of all neo-natal deaths in the world, (2.1 million) occurred in India, says UNICEF Report 2007 . More than one in five children who die within four weeks of birth is an Indian. Nearly fifty percent of Indian children who die before the age of five do not survive beyond the first 28 days.

I would stick to the latest avliable one

Child_Mortality_Report_2011_Final.pdf

For India as of 2010

The number of under five deaths : 1.696 million

And number of infant death has come down to 1.3 million

Neo-natal deaths 875,000

Considerable reduction compared to 2.1 million neo-natal deaths in 2007
 
As this hunger issue is an evil that both India and Pakistan face we should merge this with the Pakistani thread and perhaps do something constructive in coming out with ideas to help those that are less fortunate and afflicted by this evil in both countries
 
Hafizz you know Indian members will get upset at anything that does not show India as incredible and shining. Very sad situation that the hungry and poor are forgotten

Its okie sirji even if we forget about this issue.

You and your fellaws are remembering it and showing concern everyday in here.

So nice of you. :cheers:
 
I think instead of arguing we should accept the facts we have people dieing in our society due to unavailability of adiquate food, I seek any models that we could explain to NGO to consider starting and concentrating on the bleeding points - yes I am proud indian , but i have a duty to help my neighbours thanks for sharing this real facts
 
Its okie sirji even if we forget about this issue.

You and your fellaws are remembering it and showing concern everyday in here.

So nice of you. :cheers:

well Sparky both countries are affected by these evils and we can either fool ourselves like some do on here and forget our own issues and point to the shortcomings of other countries or we can try to address them and try something constructive. Hunger does not pay attention to LOC.

I think instead of arguing we should accept the facts we have people dieing in our society due to unavailability of adiquate food, I seek any models that we could explain to NGO to consider starting and concentrating on the bleeding points - yes I am proud indian , but i have a duty to help my neighbours thanks for sharing this real facts

We need to address both countries hunger issues. It is a duty on us we can not ignore. Frankly I blame our leaders at both sides for not giving more importance to education and hunger
 

Pakistan Defence Latest Posts

Military Forum Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom