Ensuring Nutrition Security: What the government can do
In 2012, India lost over $12 billion in GDP to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Scaling up core micronutrient interventions would cost less than $574 million per year, the World Bank says.
Image: ShutterstockIndia is home to over 1.3 billion people which accounts for 17.6 percent of the global population. As a developing country with a large population, India is facing the challenge of ‘nutrition security’ or provision of the right and balanced diet to its citizens. Several studies have shown that Indian consumers are falling short of their daily calorie requirement which increases the likelihood of diseases.
For example, a survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) on Nutritional Intake in India (2011-12) found that, since the year 2000, there has been a sharp decline in calorie intake in both urban and rural India resulting in low nutrition levels. The survey found that on an average, fruits and vegetables contributed only around 9 percent of the calorie intake. A pioneering study by the World Health Organization (WHO) panel on diet, nutrition and prevention of chronic diseases recommended an intake of at least 400 grams or five daily servings of fruits and vegetables (excluding potatoes, cassava and other starchy tubers) with an average serving size of 80 grams, to prevent diet-related chronic diseases and micronutrient deficiencies.
Using this as a benchmark, the authors surveyed 1,001 individuals in the financial year 2015-16 across five cities of India covering high- and middle-income groups to understand their consumption patterns. The survey found that even educated Indian consumers are consuming less than the WHO ‘recommended’ quantity of fruits and vegetables. While the average intake of fruits and vegetables in a typical day for all the survey respondents taken together was 3.5 servings, which is lower than the WHO recommendation of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables, 18-25 year-olds were consuming only around 2.97 servings. This is a cause for concern.
Linking dietary shortfalls to poor health conditions, a number of studies by the World Bank and others such as P.V Kotecha have highlighted that vitamins and micronutrient deficiencies have led to the death of children in India. The perceived loss due to micronutrient deficiencies is very high. It costs India one percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), which amounts to a loss of ₹277.2 billion per annum in terms of productivity, illness, increased health care costs and death. In 2012, India lost over $12 billion in GDP to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Compared to this, scaling up core micronutrient interventions would cost less than $574 million per year according to the World Bank.
With the growing nutritional deficiency in the country and the rising cost of malnutrition, the National Health Policy (2017) has emphasised on the need to reduce malnutrition and particularly micronutrient deficiencies from India. The NITI Aayog recently came up with a vision of ‘Malnutrition Free India’ which would reduce all forms of malnutrition by the year 2030.
In 2015, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued Draft Guidelines for Making Available Wholesome, Nutritious, Safe and Hygienic Food to School Children in India, which involved tackling childhood obesity by targeting the right diet through school canteens. More recently, in 2017, the FSSAI has proposed a set of measures, including tax, strict labeling norms and banning of advertisements on children’s shows, to check the consumption of foods high in fat, sugar and salt.
[This article has been published with permission from IIM Bangalore. www.iimb.ac.in Views expressed are personal.]
