Child Malnutrition In India Case Study

Epidemiology Child malnutrition is a major public health issue that has been gaining attention in recent years. India is home to nearly 40% of the world’s malnourished children, one of the highest proportions of this population in the world. In India, 2.5 million children die annually and more than half of these deaths are preventable with proper nourishment. According to the Global Hunger Index, a measure of insufficient food availability, child malnutrition, and child mortality based on information captured by the United Nations, India is 96th out of 116 counties when it comes to hunger (von Braun, Ruel, & Gulati, 2008). In the eight Millennium Development Goals established by the World Bank, three goals pertain to child malnutrition: hunger, reducing child mortality, and improving maternal health (The World Bank, 2015). One of the reasons that child

Fenske et al. organize factors that cause stunting in Indian children into underlying, intermediate, immediate, and non-modifiable factors (Figure 2) (Fenske, Burns, Hothorn, & Rehfuess, 2013). While stunting is one part of malnutrition, the intermediate determinants identified represent many of the pathways through which programs could aim to combat childhood malnutrition in India. Review of nutrition interventions in India to combat malnutrition such as breastfeeding, promotion of complementary feeding through education or food provision, and supplementation with single or multiple nutrients shows significant impacts on behavior related to malnutrition, but only modest impacts on reversing the effects of malnutrition (Fenske, Burns, Hothorn, & Rehfuess, 2013). Therefore, it is important to consider the many social determinants that affect childhood malnutrition in order to effectively treat and reverse the effects of