The book revisits the causes of persisting under nutrition in India, but moves away from the usual focus on women and children to a broader view of the entire population. It estimates the economic losses resulting from ignoring under nutrition in the adult working population and questions the current narrow focus of nutrition interventions, suggesting that a family-based approach may provide quicker results and long-term sustainability. It compares the best and worst performing states in the country to glean learnings from both successes and failures and emphasizes the need to hand over the ownership of nutrition outcomes from the state to the community and family for more sustainable results. The book is organized in three sections: Part 1 details the nutrition status of the population, regional variations in nutrition outcomes and government response in terms of interventions. Part 2 reviews issues and concerns like gender discrimination, poor child nutrition status, ineffective implementation of government programmes in the field and the possible impacts of emerging issues like climate change. Part 3 seeks solutions from both international and country experiences.

Despite substantial economic growth, India has one of the highest undernutrition rates in the world; it is home to almost 40 per cent of the world’s stunted children. This volume assesses the status and causes of undernutrition in the country, and examines the effectiveness of policies designed to address undernutrition. The essays tackle wide-ranging themes and challenging issues including nutrition; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); maternal, neonatal and child health; Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS); Public Distribution System (PDS); crop procurement; and National Food Security Act 2013. With contributions from leading academic researchers, policymakers, as well as civil society representatives, this volume will be indispensable to scholars, teachers and students of public policy, development economics, development sociology, and Indian economy. It will also be useful to government institutions, think tanks and NGOs.

This book deals with issues related to undernutrition and anaemia in India. It establishes its interconnectedness with poverty, tribal living conditions, contraception usage, dietary diversity, and socioeconomic inequality. It addresses SDG 2, namely “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” It puts forth the linkages between mother's economic empowerment and children's nutritional status, anaemia of women with particular reference to tribal women, and the issues associated with anaemia in India. It also delves into the relationship between contraceptive usage and anaemia level. It explores the proximate and intermediate determinants of undernutrition disaggregated at the state level in India. It elaborates the importance of ensuring food security and suggests policy measures to improve maternal and child health. The book is an asset for all researchers, academicians, clinicians and policy makers dealing with sociology, economics, public policy, social work, population study, gender issues, biostatistics, health, development, and nutrition.

This open access book examines the interactions between India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” The Indian growth story is a paradoxical one. Despite economic progress over the past two decades, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition problems persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity along with micro-nutrient deficiency portend to a future public health crisis. This book explores various challenges and opportunities to achieve a nutrition-secure future through diversified production systems, improved health and hygiene environment and greater individual capability to access a balanced diet contributing to an increase in overall productivity. The authors bring together the latest data and scientific evidence from the country to map out the current state of food systems and nutrition outcomes. They place India within the context of other developing country experiences and highlight India’s status as an outlier in terms of the persistence of high levels of stunting while following global trends in obesity. This book discusses the policy and institutional interventions needed for promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system and the multi-sectoral strategies needed for simultaneously addressing the triple burden of malnutrition in India.

"The prevalence of child undernutrition in India is among the highest in the world, nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, with dire consequences for morbidity, mortality, productivity and economic growth. Drawing on qualitative studies and quantitative evidence from large household surveys, this book explores the dimensions of child undernutrition in India and examines the effectiveness of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)program, India's main early child development intervention, in addressing it. Although levels of undernutrition in India declined modestly during the 1990s, the reductions lagged behind those achieved by other countries with similar economic growth. Nutritional inequalities across different states and socioeconomic and demographic groups remain large. Although the ICDS program appears to be well-designed and well-placed to address the multi-dimensional causes of malnutrition in India, several problems exist that prevent it from reaching its potential. The book concludes with a discussion of a number of concrete actions that can be taken to bridge the gap between the policy intentions of ICDS and its actual implementation."

The Pocket Book is for use by doctors nurses and other health workers who are responsible for the care of young children at the first level referral hospitals. This second edition is based on evidence from several WHO updated and published clinical guidelines. It is for use in both inpatient and outpatient care in small hospitals with basic laboratory facilities and essential medicines. In some settings these guidelines can be used in any facilities where sick children are admitted for inpatient care. The Pocket Book is one of a series of documents and tools that support the Integrated Managem.