Global Nutrition Report 2021

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’.