Eureka!

Is it not a Eureka moment for India, when a chief minister (the ablest they say) says our children are malnourised only because of figure consciousness? How sweet! Imagine a child aged 2 or 4 looking at our zero figure, Kareena Kapoor and dreaming to be like her? Or the boys like Salman Khan? Or let us imagine that it is their mothers who are making these poor ones starve in order to attain the zero figure. If so, damn these mothers!

 It is surprisingthat the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who is considered a shrewdadministrator, well on top of the problems in his state, as well as a possible contender for the prime minister’s post, has blundered on the issue of malnutrition. In an interview to The Wall Street Journal, an American news daily, he has attributed his state’s high rates of malnutrition to vegetarianism and to the figure conscious Gujarati girls. He has reportedly said, ‘The middle class is more beauty-conscious than health-conscious –that is a challenge.’ While Modi may not be entirely in the wrong when heblames these factors for the shocking state of malnutrition in Gujarat, theseare surely not the primary reasons.

He also says that it is because of vegetarianism. But in this case how about Punjab?

There are more vegetarians in Punjab than in Gujarat and yet Punjab, along with Kerala and north east states like, Manipur, Mizoram and Sikkim are the states where there are less malnourished children.

It must be hard to swallow the truth since India has been up in the chart since years for having the most malnourished under-5 children. We are way up above the poorest African countries too!

The World Bank estimates that India is ranked 2nd in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition, after Bangladesh (in 1998), where 47% of the children exhibit a degree of malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa with dire consequences for mobility, mortality, productivity and economic growth.^[

Now let us look at the Infant Mortality Rates or the number of Infants dying under one year of age per 1000 births in the same year.

Even here, states like Gujarat which claims development paints a dismal picture. One can download the Family Statistics Report 2011 to get the complete picture.

Health is wealth. The nation's wealth lies in it's citizens and if good health cannot be provided to our furture generation then this nation will continue to lag behind in every other area of development.

The effect of undernutrition on young children (ages 0-8) can be devastating and enduring. It can impede behavioral and cognitive development, educability, and reproductive health, thereby undermining future work productivity. Since growth failure occurs almost exclusively during the intrauterine period and in the first two years of life, preventing stunting, anemia, or xerophthalmia, therefore calls for interventions, which focus on the very young.

Whether or not children are well-nourished during their first years of life can have a profound effect on their health status, as well as their ability to learn, communicate, think analytically, socialize effectively and adapt to new environments and people. Good nutrition is the first line of defense against numerous childhood diseases, which can leave their mark on a child for life. In the area of cognitive development, "when there isn't enough food, the body has to make a decision about how to invest the limited foodstuffs available. Survival comes first. Growth comes second. In this nutritional triage, the body seems obliged to rank learning last. Better to be stupid and alive than smart and dead" (Sagan and Druyan).

But then the paradox is that a section of the society is facing obesity too.

Hope Modi realizes that his state too ranks pretty high in the obesity list (7th in the country). 

So who is beauty consious? Himself?

Source:

http://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_statistics.html

http://apps.who.int/nutrition/landscape/report.aspx?iso=IND&rid=161&template=nutrition&goButton=Go

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTCY/EXTECD/0,,contentMDK:20207804~menuPK:528430~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:344939,00.html

Human Development Report 2011

http://www.millenniumpost.in/NewsContent.aspx?NID=7412

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_narendra-modis-beauty-pill-hard-to-swallow_1735020

http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=2224&r=xx&l=en

http://www.globalhealthfacts.org/data/topic/map.aspx?ind=48

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/EN_WHS2012_Full.pdf

Still a long way to go...

Continued from previous post...



STATE-WISE INFANT MORTALITY RATE (per1000) -
Year 1961, 2003 & 2005

(please click to enlarge)

As you can see, some states in India have come a long way but as a whole India is yet to tackle hunger and poverty.

The following are the states which are showing an upward trend and it seems to continue in year 2008 too.

The following are the 2008 figures for India:

The performance is not good while compared to other countries and China seems to be doing better even here.

The infant deaths can be due to hunger as well as the poor health of the mother. The healthier the mother, the more chance there would be for an infant to survive.

Four diseases-pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria and AIDS-accounted for 43 per cent of all deaths in children under five worldwide in 2008. Pneumonia and diarrhoea together account for a third of all under-five deaths. Most of these lives could have been saved through low-cost prevention and treatment measures, including antibiotics for acute respiratory infections, oral rehydration for diarrhoea, immunization, and the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and appropriate drugs for malaria. The need to refocus attention on pneumonia and diarrhoea—two of the three leading killers of children—is urgent.


Worldwide mortality in children younger than 5 years has dropped from 11•9 million deaths in 1990 to
7•7 million deaths in 2010, consisting of 3•1 million neonatal deaths, 2•3 million postneonatal deaths, and 2•3 million childhood deaths (deaths in children aged 1–4 years). 33•0% of deaths in children younger than 5 years occur in south Asia and 49•6% occur in sub-Saharan Africa, with less than 1% of deaths occurring in high-income countries. Across 21 regions of the world, rates of neonatal, postneonatal, and childhood mortality are declining. The global decline from 1990 to 2010 is 2•1% per year for neonatal mortality, 2•3% for postneonatal mortality, and 2•2% for childhood mortality. In 13 regions of the world, including all regions in sub-Saharan Africa, there is evidence of accelerating declines from 2000 to 2010 compared with 1990 to 2000. Within sub-Saharan Africa, rates of decline have increased by more than 1% in Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, and The Gambia.


Source:
Neonatal, postneonatal, childhood, and under-5 mortality for 187 countries, 1970–2010: a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 4 www. thelancet.com
http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2006-07/chapt2007/tab95.pdf
http://www.foodjustice.net/report/ngo-reports/india/India_Hunger_Index_2008.pdf/view
http://www.childinfo.org/mortality.html