According to the Global hunger Report, when Govt. provides only free or subsidised wheat and rice, then the hunger gets eliminated only from the energy intake angle. The deficiency in vitamins and minerals still continues and this is called Hidden Hunger. It occurs when the quality of food people eat does not meet the nutrient requirements, so the food is deficient in micronutrients such as the vitamins and minerals that need for their growth and development.

Body:

Hidden hunger is a major challenge for India:

• India is home to over 40 million stunted and 17 million wasted children (under-five years).
• Despite a fast-growing economy and the largest anti-malnutrition programme, India has the world’s worst level of child malnutrition
• Iron deficiency is thought to be the most common cause of anaemia globally, accounting for between 25-50% of anaemia cases.
• Though anaemia among children has declined, it affects every second child in the country. There has been no perceptible decline in anaemia among 15 to 49-year old women; it affects around 60 per cent of them.
• The daily consumption of iron rich dark green leafy vegetables has reduced from 64 per cent to 48 per cent of the population in the last decade.
• Many, in fact, argue that the NFSA’s focus on wheat and rice has forced millets — traditional source for iron and minerals — out of the market.
• The government’s iron supplementation programme to overcome IDA has led to only 30 per cent of pregnant women consuming iron and folic acid tablets.
• Lack of sanitation and clean drinking water are the reasons high levels of malnutrition persists in India despite improvement in food availability

India’s effort to achieve food security:

• Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), with its network of 1.4 million Anganwadi Centres, reaching almost 100 million beneficiaries who include pregnant and nursing mothers and children up to 6 years;
• Mid-day meals (MDM) that reach almost 120 million children in schools; and
• Public Distribution System (PDS) that reaches over 800 million people under the National Food Security Act.
• The recently announced flagship program of the Ministry of Women and Child Development will be anchored through the National Nutrition Mission (NNM), or Poshan Abhiyaan, with its own specific budget of ?9,046 crore and a proposed World Bank loan of $200 million, to ensure convergence among the various programmes of the government.
• Additionally, NITI Aayog has worked on a National Nutrition Strategy (NNS), isolated the 100 most backward districts for stunting and prioritised those for interventions.
• The National Nutrition Strategy (NNS) has set very ambitious targets for 2022 and the Poshan Abhiyaan has also specified three-year targets to reduce stunting, under-nutrition and low birth weight by 2% each year, and to reduce anaemia by 3% each year.
• IYCF(Infant and Young child feeding), Food and Nutrition, Immunization, Institutional Delivery, WASH(Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), De-worming, ORS-Zinc, Food Fortification, Dietary Diversification, Adolescent Nutrition, Maternal Health and Nutrition, ECCE(Early Childhood care and Education), Convergence, ICT-RTM(Information and Communication. Technology enabled Real Time Monitoring), Capacity Building.

Measures needed:

• Early life-cycle interventions targeting the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are crucial for reducing a child’s susceptibility to infections, and breaking the link between undernutrition, disease and mortality.
• Direct nutrition interventions can reduce stunting only by 20%; indirect interventions, for example, access to water, sanitation and hygiene, must tackle the remaining 80%.
• The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan should be used to leverage policy complementarities with household sanitation, and behavioural change encouraged through social messaging and information-education-communication activities for pregnant and lactating mothers.
• Policy must deliver universal, rights-based nutrition services, which overcome disparities across gender, communities and geographical regions.
• The Global Hunger Index report recommends returning to traditional diets comprising locally available, biodiverse food to overcome growing under-nutrition.
• To combine fragmented efforts, a nodal government body should be established with responsibility for meeting time-bound nutrition targets, and coordinating multi-sectoral programmes, including the ICDS, the National Rural Health Mission, the midday meal scheme, and the public distribution system.
• Food fortification of staples (including wheat, flour, rice and edible oils) represents a cost-effective and scalable solution to enhance nutrient intake. Standards for food fortification should be established, and guidelines changed to promote the use of fortified inputs in ICDS-provided hot cooked meals.
• The government should facilitate public-private partnerships in the sector. Private sector engagement can leverage technological solutions for scaling up food fortification initiatives, and complement the government’s outreach efforts through mass awareness and education campaigns in communities.

Conclusion:

Prioritizing early childhood nutrition is key to ensuring India’s development rests on strong and steady shoulders. India’s ability to harness long-term demographic dividends rests on it prioritizing nutrition in its health agenda, and reforming the institutional framework through which interventions are delivered.