Poor implementation, gender bias key hurdles in ending malnutrition
Already lagging behind its goals for eradicating malnutrition, India slides further due to disruptions in food deliveries to vulnerable sections of the society. Government needs to do much more than simply throw money at malnutrition, wishing it will disappear.
Disruption of food supply chain as well as the economic burden imposed by Covid-19 pandemic may have led to a sharp rise in the incidents of malnutrition around the world and especially in India which even before the pandemic had consistently recorded the largest number of malnutrition cases and stunted children in the world. A recent report in Lancet magazine said that the pandemic may lead to increase by a sixth in stunting or wasting of children below five years of age in 118 low-and-middle income countries across the globe. That translates into seven million more stunted children, to add to the pre-pandemic estimate of 47 million stunted children. Lancet also said that over 100,000 children may have already died this year due to malnutrition.
Experts believe that even though data is not yet available, Covid-19 may have already taken its toll due to several reasons – notably disruption of food supplies as well as millions of precariously poised people who lost their jobs. “We are yet to see its impact, but it’s going to be really bad. People working on daily wages lost their jobs during lockdown. So did farmers. The first place where human being will compromise is food. Even though the government provided them with food rations, but when I went and interviewed people, they said it’s not enough as we have bigger families. Covid-19 is going to increase malnutrition in India by two-fold. I want to see what next survey tells us about stunted growth and malnutrition,” Prachi Pandit, a nutrition expert from Pune, makes a dire prediction while talking to Media India Group.