Nutritional Status in States of India

Abstract

The present contribution makes the 16th part of Social Change Indicators series. We have deliberated on several social and economic issues in the previous editions, and the topics included vulnerable households of different social classes, poverty, migration, living conditions, social protection, displacement of labour, health and morbidity conditions of older adults, women’s time-use patterns and intimate partner violence. In this part, we examine the nutritional status of adult males and females (aged 15–49 years) as well as children below 5 years, across states of India. We first provide the state-wise prevalence of malnourished children in rural and urban areas according to the anthropometric indices of underweight (weight for age). Subsequently, the ranking of states based on percentage of children who are underweight, stunted, wasted, and anaemic is presented. The information on the prevalence of adult male and female with below-normal body mass index or anaemia is included next. As a final point, information on the degrees of overweight men, women, and children is presented.