An Indian recipe to quell micronutrient malnutrition

#GS-03 Food Security, #GS-02 Health

For Prelims

Stunting:

• Stunting is the share of children under five who have low height-for-age.
• It is the result of chronic or recurrent undernutrition.
• One third of all Indian children are suffering stunting.

Wasting:

• Wasting is defined as low weight-for-height.
• It often indicates recent and severe weight loss, although it can also persist for a long time.
• It is caused by an acute shortage of food and an unhealthy environment or disease.
• One in every five child in India are wasted.

Anaemia:

• It is a condition in which the number of red blood cells or their oxygen-carrying capacity is insufficient to meet physiologic needs, which vary by age, sex, altitude, smoking, and pregnancy status.
• In its severe form, it is associated with fatigue, weakness, dizziness and drowsiness.
• Pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable.
• One in every two women in India are anaemic.

FAO Food Security Report for 2021:

• The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World is an annual flagship report jointly prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO.
• According to an FAO Food Security Report for 2021, India ranks 101 out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2021, with a 15.3% undernourished population, the highest proportion of stunted children (30%), and wasted children (17.3%).

Food Fortification:

• Fortification 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.
• These nutrients may or may not have been originally present in the food before processing.

For Mains

Concerns for India:

• Global Nutrition Report 2021 gives cause for concern, noting that stunting among children in India is significantly higher (30%) than the Asian average of 21.8%.
• As per National Family Health Survey-5 data, every second Indian woman is anaemic, every third child is stunted and malnourished, and every fifth child is wasted.
• According to an FAO Food Security Report for 2021, India ranks 101 out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2021, with a 15.3% undernourished population, the highest proportion of stunted children (30%), and wasted children (17.3%).

Food Fortification in India:

• Pilot projects on the distribution of fortified rice have been taken up in select States, including Maharashtra (Gadchiroli district) as part of a targeted Public Distribution programme for the masses.
• It helped reduce anaemia from 58.9% to 29.5% within a span of two years.
• This has made government to scale up the distribution of fortified rice, through the existing platform of social safety nets such as the PDS, ICDS and PM-POSHAN.
• The health benefits accruing from food fortification have made 80 countries to frame laws for the fortification of cereal flour, and 130 countries with iodised salt, where 13 countries have mandated rice fortification.

Concerns about Anaemia:

• Iron deficiency anaemia is responsible for 3.6% of disability-adjusted life years or DALYs according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
• In Gujarat, among schoolchildren (six-12 years) in 2018-2019, as part of the Midday Meal Scheme with fortified rice, found increased haemoglobin concentration, 10% reduction in anaemia prevalence, and, improved average cognitive scores (by 11.3%).

The cost of Fortification:

• According to NITI Aayog a rice fortification budget of around ₹2,800 crore per year can save 35% of the total or 16.6 million DALYs per year with no known risk of toxicity.
• India, the cost of one DALY lost due to iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) is approximately ₹30,000, while the cost of averting an IDA-related DALY is only ₹1,545, resulting in a cost-benefit ratio of 1:18.
• Rice fortification, which costs less than 1% of the food subsidy bill (2018-19), has the potential to prevent 94.1 million anaemia cases, saving ₹8,098 crore over a five-year period.