‘1/3rd of world’s undernourished kids in India’

Not just this, Unicef says India is not doing enough to tide over the problem. The report castigates India’s efforts to reach the Millenium Development Goals as ‘insufficient’.

This also means India is home to one-third of the world’s 146 million undernourished children. India is on par with Ethiopia (47 per cent), Nepal (48 pc) and Bangladesh (48 pc) on the undernourished map of the world.

‘‘This is the underlying cause for half of the 2.1 million child deaths in the country every year,’’ Unicef India representative Cecilio Adrona told reporters here.

Madhya Pradesh (55.1 per cent), Bihar (54.4), Orissa (54.4), Uttar Pradesh (51.7) and Rajasthan (50.6) are at the top of the undernourishment chart in India. Undernutrition is defined as the outcome of insufficient food intake (hunger) and repeated infectious diseases. Undernutrition includes being underweight, too short (stunted) and dangerously thin (wasted).

The report highlights in India one out of every three adult women is underweight and therefore at the risk of delivering babies with low weight. It is also home to nearly 40 per cent low birth weight babies in the developing world, a staggering 7.8 million of them.

Malnutrition also has a clear gender bias — according to the report, severe malnutrition is more common among girls than among boys.

In terms of numbers, no other country is even close to India. Bangladesh and Pakistan share the number two place with eight million undernourished children, while China is at number three with seven million.

But as far as percentage is concerned, China is at a relatively better position with just 8 per cent undernourished children.

While the report says Afghanistan and Bangladesh are showing significant improvement, it claims India and Pakistan have made no significant progress.