While 14.4 million children in India are obese due to over-consumption of HFSS, or High Fat, Salt, Sugar foods, it is disturbing to see India occupy 102nd position in the Global Hunger Index (Editorial page, “Turning the policy focus to child undernutrition”, November 20).
Of the three suggestions made by the writer to overcome the problem of undernutrition, dietary diversity and sanitation can be achieved by the Poshan Abhiyaan and Swachh Bharat Mission programmes, respectively. In many segments of society, consumption of HFSS-based junk food is perceived to be a status symbol. This happens even in the families with educated members. One hopes that the recent FSSAI rules will address the issue in a comprehensive manner.
Bitra Raghuveer,
Mangalagiri, Andhra Pradesh
It would be very pertinent for stakeholders to come to grips with the emerging food security imperatives. Significantly, the recent Lancet ‘Countdown 2019’ report on health and climate change has also mentioned that the children across the world are among the worst affected by the climate change impacts, with high levels of susceptibility to diarrhoeal diseases and the most severe effects of dengue fever. As such there is an urgent need to strengthen primary health centres and Anganwadi workers to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and to build up the requisite resilience among children through nutritional food. The existing mid-day meal policy needs to be revamped to include millets and coarse grains for children of the marginalised sections of society to achieve a balanced dietary mix.
Arguably, infant mortality is still a major health concern in many villages. Hence, ensuring proper and timely nutrition to expectant and lactating mothers is key to enabling the overall nutritional health of the children in villages .
G. Ramasubramanyam,
Kanuru, Vijayawada
