Malnutrition in Karnataka’s most impoverished district worse than found by NFHS: survey

The baseline survey for a Department of Science and Technology-funded project to establish “SHG/FPO enterprises to address malnutrition and provide rural livelihoods” in the district has revealed that while stunting in children below five years was lower than reported by the National Family Health Survey-5 for Yadgir, the percentage of wasted and underweight children is higher.

According to the survey–published last week by the Auro Society for Public Nutrition, Public Health and Public Policy–47.9 per cent of children below five are stunted compared to 57.5 per cent reported by the National Family Health Survey-5 while 32.5 per cent and 53.5 per cent were wasted and underweight compared to 17.7 per cent and 45.2 per cent, respectively, in the NFHS-5 data from 2019.

The BMI of 11-18-year-olds is recorded as being too low among 83.3 per cent of the boys and 73.4 per cent of the girls, as against 47.1 per cent and 42.4 per cent in NFHS-5.

“The data presented in this baseline survey is indeed very worrisome. The indicators for wasting and underweight among children, and for low BMI of adolescent girls and boys, are considerably higher than the Yadgir district indicators,” said Veena Rao, director of the Auro Society for Public Nutrition.

One of the key reasons for the recording of lower nutrition levels in Yadgir, one of two backward Karnataka classified among “aspirational” districts by the Centre, is that the “survey is specific to the sub-group constituting the lowest-wealth quintile households,” Veena Rao said.

The survey was conducted primarily among backward groups, with about 57 per cent of the respondents being from backward castes, about 25 per cent from Scheduled Castes, and around 14 per cent from Scheduled Tribes.

Among other key findings is that around 20 per cent of mothers of children below three years (all migrant labourers) revealed that their infants did not consume any complementary food alongside breast milk until they were nearly two years of age.

One of the aims of the nutrition project is to create processed food by creating units to process fruits and vegetable produce to avoid the nearly 30 per cent losses in these products for want of storage and means of utilisation for the produce.

The Yadgir survey has found that 86.2 per cent of the boys and 91.2 per cent of the girls attending government schools received midday meals.

In 2018 Yadgir was listed as one of the 112 “aspirational” districts in India to receive extra focus for development. The districts were identified by the NITI Aayog “as having the lowest composite indicators in terms of health and nutrition, education, agriculture, water resources, financial inclusion, skill development and basic infrastructure”.

Neighboring Raichur is the other “aspirational” district in the state.