51% of women in India anaemic, most in world

MUMBAI: India has the largest number of anaemic women in the world, with 51% of those aged between 15 and 49 years suffering from iron deficiency, according to Global Nutrition Report 2017. The country is followed by China, Pakistan, Nigeria and Indonesia.

India also faces the double whammy of undernutrition on one hand and obesity on the other. While 38% of children under 5 are affected by stunting and 21% children in the same age group are defined as 'wasted' or 'severely wasted' (where their weight is not enough for their height), 16% of men and 22% of women (1 in 5) are overweight.

The report has found 'significant burdens' of three major forms of malnutrition used as indicator of broader trends —childhood stunting which does irreversible damage to brain capacity, anaemia in women of reproductive age that can have long term health impacts for mother and child, and overweight women, a rising concern as women are disproportionately affected by the global obesity epidemic.

According to the report, while India has shown some progress in addressing stunting among under-5 children, there is a long way to go in dealing with anaemic women of reproductive age and in reaching targets on reducing adult obesity and diabetes. "India's government is recognizing that the country cannot afford inaction on nutrition, but the road ahead is going to be long. The Global Nutrition Report highlights that the double burden of undernutrition and obesity needs to be tackled as part of the national nutrition strategy. For undernutrition especially, major efforts are needed to close the inequality gap" said Purnima Menon, part of the independent expert group that prepared the report and senior research fellow in International Food Policy Research Institute.

Overall, the report says 88% of countries face a serious burden of either two or three forms of malnutrition (childhood stunting, anaemia in women of reproductive age and/or overweight in adult women), with 815 million going to bed hungry, up from 777 million in 2015. One-third of people worldwide are overweight and obese, while over a staggering billion and a half suffer from anaemia and other micronutrient deficiencies. Around 200 million children are stunted or wasted.

Ironically, donor funding for nutrition rose by just 2% in 2015, to $867 million, representing a slight fall in the overall percentage of global aid. The report says funding needs to be 'turbo charged' and calls for trebling of global investments in nutrition, to $70bn over 10 years to tackle childhood stunting, wasting and anaemia and to increase breastfeeding rates. To help address malnutrition, the Global Nutrition Summit 2017 held in Milan, galvanized global aid to help reach these targets, which includes a pledge of $50 million over five years, by Tata Trusts, a philanthropic arm of Tata group.

The report, released recently, shows that despite steps taken by the world, nutrition is still a large-scale and universal problem. There is an urgent need for nutrition to be placed at the heart of all global efforts, be it to end poverty, fight disease, raise educational standards or/and tackle climate change, and hence it is key in enabling sustainable development. Poor nutrition elevates the risk of poverty, with 43% of children under 5 in low-and middle-income countries at an elevated risk of poverty because of stunting. Though undernutrition in children is decreasing, global progress has not been fast enough to meet internationally agreed nutrition goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030, the report says.