The NFHS report looked at adequate diet for both breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding children till they reached two years.
The NFHS report looked at adequate diet for both breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding children till they reached two years.
Input your search keywords and press Enter.
Highlighting a key gap in child nutrition, the recently released National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) has found that 89 per cent of children between the formative ages of 6-23 months do not receive a “minimum acceptable diet’’. This is only marginally better than the 90.4 per cent recorded in NFHS-4.
The NFHS report looked at adequate diet for both breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding children till they reached two years.
It found that 88.9 per cent of children between 6-23 months, who are breastfeeding, did not receive adequate diet in 2019-2020 — a slight improvement from 91.3 per cent in 2015-16. And that 87.3 per cent of non-breastfeeding children in this category did not receive adequate nutrition in 2019-21, up from 85.7 per cent in 2015-16.
Among all states and Union Territories, the proportion of children aged 6-23 months who received a minimum acceptable diet was highest in Meghalaya (28.5 per cent) and the lowest in UP and Gujarat (5.9 per cent each). In 2015-16, the proportion of children in this category stood at 5.2 per cent in Gujarat and 6.1 per cent in UP.
Apart from Gujarat and UP, 10 other states — Assam (7.2 per cent), Rajasthan (8.3 per cent), Maharashtra (8.9 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (9 per cent), MP (9 per cent), Telangana (9 per cent), Chhattisgarh (9.1 per cent), Jharkhand (10 per cent), Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (10.2 per cent) and Bihar (10.8 per cent) — recorded a lower than national-level proportion (11 per cent) of children receiving adequate diet.
Among the top-five states where the percentage of children fom 6-23 months receiving adequate diet was highest, Meghalaya was followed by Sikkim (23.8 per cent), Kerala (23.3 per cent), Ladakh (23.1 per cent) and Puducherry (22.9 per cent).
“Infants and young children should be fed a minimum acceptable diet to ensure appropriate growth and development… Without adequate diversity and meal frequency, infants and young children are vulnerable to undernutrition, especially stunting and micronutrient deficiencies, and to increased morbidity and mortality,” the report said.
“The minimum acceptable diet is a composite of two main things: breastfeeding and its frequency up to two years, and dietary diversity. A child needs at least four of the food groups indicated by the WHO every day to have a minimum acceptable diet. Only 25 per cent of children receive this dietary diversity while 35 per cent of children receive adequate milk frequency,” said Antaryami Dash, acting deputy director (nutrition and health), Save the Children.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/89-per-cent-children-between-6-23-months-dont-get-adequate-diet-nfhs-7910496/