The Nutrition Paradox in India: The Coexistence of Undernutrition and Overnutrition.

Abstract

Undernutrition and overnutrition pose a significant challenge in many developing countries, including India. While one of the millennium development goal was to eradicate poverty and hunger by 2015, leaving health service workers with a compounding dilemma of solving both undernutrition and overnutrition concurrently. Both undernutrition and overnutrition are linked with a range of adverse health conditions. The underweights are susceptible to poor maternal and infant health as well as childhood growth problems and compromised mental development, whereas obese are associated with chronic diseases as stroke, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and certain forms of cancer. The prevalence of child undernutrition was 60% in 1990 which came to 40% in 2011. India still continues to have a larger share of stunted, underweight, and wasted children. The underweight rate was about 52% in 1992 and declined to 47% in 1998 and remained nearly almost same (46%) in 2005-2006. On the other hand, overnutrition is also becoming a major public health problem over the past several decades. Studies have shown an increase in overweight children and adults over the past 2 decades especially.