Stunting among rural children in Telangana has increased over the last few years, reveals data presented by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) in its nutritional atlas.
The data for 2015-16 was put together when the findings of the fourth National Family Health Survey were published. However, the city-based NIN’s atlas provides for visual interpretation and easy comparison. Accordingly, an assessment of the nutritional status of children can be easily made by an assessment of two defining parameters – stunting and wasting. While the data presented for wasting (low weight for height) shows improvement, the data for stunting does not.
The figures show stunting (low height for age) has increased significantly in rural children when compared to the data collected for 2012-13. Nearly one-third of the children surveyed were found to be stunted during 2015-16 as against 20.8% in 2012-13. Though the percentage of urban children with stunting had decreased by about 7% points in the same duration, this decrease was not enough to reduce the total percentage of children stunted, which increased from 23.7% (2012-13) to 28.1% (2015-16).
In a surprising contrast, the State’s data for wasting has shown significant improvement during 2012-2016 as the total percentage of children, including rural and urban, has been halved. Both stunting and wasting are blamed on inadequate nutrition and diseases.
In Telangana, the total number of children classified as underweight has remained nearly the same in the last five years, the data shows.
