Children from migrant community slums | Photo: Nagara Gopal/The Hindu

INDIA: New report says most mothers can’t afford non-cereal diet for children

A recent report undertaken by an alliance of NGO's in India highlights high levels of malnutrition amongst children, but says there have been improvements.

Of the 74,000 mothers of malnourished children that the HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) survey spoke to, 93.7 per cent said they could not afford to give more non-cereal food to their children, and 66.3 per cent said they had never been to school.

Although 98.4 per cent of these families have access to soap, only 10.8 per cent wash their hands before a meal and 19 per cent do so after using the toilet. Less than 20 per cent mothers in the six focus states were familiar with the word “malnutrition” or its vernacular equivalent.

The HUNGaMA report covering 112 districts across nine states of the country was released today.

The survey’s unique section of mother’s voices throws up telltale data on the reasons of widespread malnutrition, which ranged from traditional practices to lack of awareness.

Rohini Mukherjee, team leader of the survey, said when her team was analysing the reasons behind denial of colostrum to 51 per cent newborns in the focus states, they received responses like: “That is sour milk that needs to be thrown away before giving it to the child”. In one village in UP, colostrum had to be offered to the local deity of fertility.

In many states, the children, though malnourished, never went without food. “Because of lack of awareness, the mother who is very conscious otherwise, will only feed the child what she cooks but that will have little other than carbohydrates, thereby affecting the child’s growth,” Mukherjee said.

However, only 47.8% mothers in the focus districts across UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh were satisfied with the quantity of non-cereal food they were able to give to their children.

In many of these districts, the surveyors also found that there was little awareness about the services of the local anganwadi centre. Mothers of children who were more than two years old used the anganwadi services as a place where the child could be kept safely for a few hours. For them whether the centre gives food to the child is secondary. Dry ration was available in only 60.7% of the anganwadi centres in the high focus states. 

~

Statement by the Indian Prime Minister

The first step in addressing the challenge of malnutrition lies in understanding it clearly. And it is for this reason that studies like the HUNGaMA survey are so important. I would like to compliment the Citizen's Alliance against Malnutrition, Nandi Foundation, Mahindra & Mahindra and other partners and supporters of the Alliance for carrying out this very significant survey. I understand that the surveyors have reached more than 73,000 households in 112 districts across 9 states. To measure more than one lakh children and talk to 74,000 mothers is indeed an extraordinary accomplishment.

The results of this survey are both worrying and encouraging. The survey reports high levels of malnutrition, but it also indicates that one child in five has reached an acceptable healthy weight during the last 7 years in 100 focus districts. This 20% decline in malnourishment in the last 7 years is better than the rate of decline reported in NFHS 3. However, what concerns me is that 42% of our children are still underweight. This is an unacceptably high occurence.

We have always believed that a mother's education level, economic status of the family, sanitation and hygiene, status of women in the family, breastfeeding and other good child rearing practices affect children's nutrition. The HUNGaMA survey has broadly validated these hypotheses.