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Introduction: National Nutrition Month to mark fight against malnutrition.
Introduction: National Nutrition Month to mark fight against malnutrition.
The national nutrition
month (Rashtrya Poshan Maah) is being celebrated across the country in September
2018 to mark fight against malnutrition. Union Ministry of Women and Child Development is organizing various programmes during this month to spread broad awareness
on issue related to malnutrition like stunting under-nutrition, anemia and low
birth weight in children.
What is the story of
the malnutrition in India?
Despite significant
efforts by the government to provide food to children through various initiatives, India
is home of 48 million children suffering from stunted growth, which
affects their physical development as well as cognitive and emotional
development.
 |
| Child Stunting |
Stunting a major problem
of undernutrition where children are short of their age, results from severe
and persistent undernutrition. Less nutritious food contributes to undernutrition. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that half of all undernutrition is
associated with diarrhea and infections resulting from inadequate access to
clean drinking water, better toilets and good hygiene.
India, the world’s second most populous nation, has the
greatest number of children in the world who are stunted. Globally, 159 million
children under the age of five are stunted—one in four children of this age.
As per WaterAid’s
caught short report – Nigeria and
Pakistan rank second and third with 10.3 and 9.8 million children stunted,
respectively.
n
Stunting is
a lifelong consequence of malnutrition that occurs in the first two years of a
child’s life and is largely irreversible after age. It is defined as children
have low height for age and indicates that children haven’t developed as they
should, physically or cognitively.
n
Currently,
12 percent of the population in India do not have access to clean water and 56
percent do not have a decent toilet.
n
54 percent
of international variation in children’s height can be linked open defecation,
which spreads deadly diseases and makes children more susceptible to diarrheal illness
and infection. Over 60,000 children under five in India die each year.
n
Five or
more cases of diarrhea before two years of age can lead to stunting, half of
all cases of under nutrition are estimated to be associated with repeated diarrhea,
intestinal worms and other infections as a direct result of inadequate water,
sanitation and hygiene.
How National
Nutrition Month will work?
National Nutrition
month will focus on adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers
to eliminate the deficiencies prevailing in the Health sector. Ministry of
Women and Child Development is working on eight focused themes like optimal
breast feeding, growth monitoring food fortification and girls’ education,
hygiene and sanitation, diet and marriage at right age etc. to achieve improvement
in nutritional status of children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and
lactating mothers. It is also trying to reach about 11 crore women and children
during this month through various grass-roots activities, with the convergence
of different ministries.
The idea of “National Nutrition Month”
The decision
to celebrate September as the National Nutrition Month every year was taken
during the second meeting of National Council on India’s Nutrition challenges
under poshan abhiyan (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition)
held in July 2018. POSHAN abhiyaan- the National Nutrition Mission launched in India
in 2018 in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan with aim to bring down stunting of children in
age group of 0-6 years from 38%to 25% by 2022.
