26
Oct
Global Hunger Index (GHI)
Global Hunger Index (GHI)
India has been ranked 94 on the 2020 Global Hunger Index (GHI), lower than neighbours like Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Global Hunger Index
- The GHI is an annual peer-reviewed publication by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.
- It aims to track hunger at global, regional and national levels.
Parameters to calculate its scores
- One third of the score comes from the level of undernourishment in a country, which is the share of the population with insufficient caloric intake and uses Food and Agriculture Organization data.
- The other three parameters are based on children under the age of five years.
- A third of the score comes from child mortality rate, which often reflects the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments.
- The remaining third of the score is based on child wasting, which is the share of children who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition, and child stunting, which is the share of children who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition.
- These parameters use information from the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the United Nations, although all these international organisations draw from national data, which, in India’s case, includes the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS).
- There is always a time lag in such data, so the 2020 scores are based on data from 2015-19.
- This results in a 100-point scale, with zero meaning no hunger at all.
- Countries scoring 9.9 and less are classified as having a low severity.
- A score between 10 and 19.9 is considered moderate,
- that from 20 to 34.9 is serious,
- and a score of 35 or more is alarming.
- These classifications are comparable over time, but the rankings themselves are not comparable, as the number of countries included in each particular year varies.
How does India fare on the different parameters in comparison to other countries?
- In 2020, India falls in the ‘serious’ category on the Index, with a total score of 27.2.
- However, its scores are abysmal when compared to its peers in the BRICS countries.
- China and Brazil both scored under five, and are considered to have very low levels of hunger.
- South Africa is ranked 60 with a score of 13.5, indicating moderate levels of hunger.
- India is tied at the 94th rank out of 107 countries, sharing the rank with Sudan.
What is the main cause for such high levels of child stunting and wasting in India?
- There is an interesting difference observed between child wasting in South Asia and the poorer nations of Africa, according to researchers.
- African babies are usually healthy at birth, but as they grow up into their toddler years, undernourishment starts to kick in.
- South Asian babies, on the other hand, show very high levels of wasting very early in their lives, within the first six months.
- Almost 42% of adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 have a low body mass index (BMI), while 54% have anaemia.
- Almost 27% of girls are married before they reach the legal age of 18 years, and 8% of adolescents have begun child bearing in their teens.
- Almost half of all women have no access to any sort of contraception.
- These poor indicators of maternal health have dire consequences for the child’s health as well.
- Poor sanitation, leading to diarrhoea, is another major cause of child wasting and stunting.
- At the time of the last NFHS, almost 40% of households were still practising open defecation.
- Only 36% of households disposed of children’s stools in a safe manner.
- One in ten children under the age of five suffer from diarrhoea.
How do different Indian States compare?
- Almost one in three children in Jharkhand show acute undernutrition, with a 29% rate of wasting.
- other large States such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka also have one in five children who are wasted.
- Interestingly, other States that usually fare poorly on development indices, such as Bihar, Rajasthan and Odisha, actually do better than the national average, with 13-14% rates of wasting.
- Uttarakhand and Punjab, along with several north-eastern States, have levels of child wasting below 10%.
- In terms of stunting, Bihar performs the worst, with 42% of children too short for their age.
- Other populous states like Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh also have stunting rates just below 40%, and so does Gujarat.
- At the other end of the scale, Jammu and Kashmir has only 15% stunted children, while Tamil Nadu and Kerala are around the 20% mark.
What needs to be done?
- Food insecurity, poor sanitation, inadequate housing, limited access to healthcare — all result in maternal distress that leads to the kind of slow, chronic wasting seen in Indian children.
- Although India has overall food security with record levels of foodgrain production in recent years, access to healthy food is still difficult for poor households.
- A recent study showed that three out of four rural Indians cannot afford the cheapest possible diet that meets the requirements set by the government’s premier nutrition body.
- Over the last five years, the Swachh Bharat Mission’s push for toilets for all and ending open defecation may have resulted in better sanitation outcomes which could reflect in better maternal and child health in the NFHS round five, which started collecting field data in 2018-19.
- The Integrated Child Development Services programme aims to provide food, primary healthcare and immunisation services to young children and mothers.
- “There is no single solution. Every kind of household deprivation that makes life difficult for women needs to be dealt with. The focus needs to be on healthy mothers.
Some Related Initiatives by India
Eat Right India Movement:
An outreach activity organised by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for citizens to nudge them towards eating right.
POSHAN Abhiyaan:
Launched by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2018, it targets to reduce stunting, undernutrition, anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls).
Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana:
A centrally sponsored scheme executed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, is a maternity benefit programme being implemented in all districts of the country with effect from 1st January, 2017.
Food Fortification:
Food Fortification or Food Enrichment is the addition of key vitamins and minerals such as iron, iodine, zinc, Vitamin A & D to staple foods such as rice, milk and salt to improve their nutritional content.
National Food Security Act, 2013:
The National Food Security Act, (NFSA) 2013 legally entitled up to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population to receive subsidized food grains under the Targeted Public Distribution System.
Mission Indradhanush:
It targets children under 2 years of age and pregnant women for immunization against 12 Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (VPD).
Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme:
Launched on 2nd October 1975, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme offers a package of six services (Supplementary Nutrition, Pre-school non-formal education, Nutrition & health education, Immunization, Health check-up and Referral services) to children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
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