Global Nutrition Report 2021

According to the recently released Global Nutrition Report 2021 (GNR, 2021), India has made no progress on anaemia and childhood wasting.

Context

According to the recently released Global Nutrition Report 2021 (GNR, 2021), India has made no progress on anaemia and childhood wasting.

• Global Nutrition Report released by WHO (World Health Organisation).

Key-findings

• The world is off track to meet five out of six global maternal, infant and young children nutrition (MIYCN) targets, on stunting, wasting, low birth weight, anaemia and childhood obesity.
• Globally, 149.2 million children under 5 years of age are stunted, 45.4 million are wasted and 38.9 million are overweight.
• Over 40% of all men and women (2.2 billion people) are now overweight or obese.
• The world is also off track for meeting all diet-related non-communicable disease(NCD) targets, on salt intake, raised blood pressure, adult obesity and diabetes.
• Key global targets and systematic monitoring exclude diet, despite its health and environmental impacts.
• No global targets are set to address micronutrient deficiencies (with the exception of anaemia), despite their importance for health and development.
• There is also no specific target that captures malnutrition among children and adolescents.
• COVID-19: An additional 155 million people are being pushed into extreme poverty globally due to pandemic.
• Obesity: No country in the world is ‘on course’ to achieve the target for obesity.

Global Nutrition Report India data

• Anaemia: 53% of Indian women in the age group 15-49 years are anaemic, while in 2016, 52.6 per cent of Indian women were anaemic.
• This signifies that there has been a rise in anaemic Indian women since 2016.
• Affected children: Where in Asia, around 9% of the children are affected, in India, more than 17% of Indian children under 5 years of age are affected.
• The report says that India is ‘off-course’ in meeting 7 of the 13 global nutrition targets.
• These include sodium intake, raised blood pressure (both men and women), obesity (both men and women) and diabetes (both men and women).
• Obesity: Around 6.2 percent of adult women and 3.5 percent of adult men are living with obesity in the country.
• Stunting: According to the report, India is among 53 countries ‘on course’ to meet the target for stunting. But over 34 per cent of children under 5 years of age are still affected, it added.
• Overweight: The country is also among 105 countries that are ‘on course’ to meet the target for ‘childhood overweight’.
• Some 58 percent of infants in the age group 0-5 months are exclusively breastfed in India.
• Low birth weight: India does not have adequate data on prevalence of ‘low birth weight’.