Global Nutrition Report 2017: India Carries a Serious Burden of Anemia, Obesity and Malnutrition  

The Global Nutrition Report 2017 was presented at Milan in Italy recently and it emphasizes on the urgent need to integrate our actions on global nutrition if India hopes to meet its Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030. According to the data revealed by the report, India is facing a serious threat of under-nutrition where more than half of the women of reproductive age suffer from anemia.

The Global Nutrition is an independently produced annual report of the state of the world’s nutrition. It tracks global nutrition targets on maternal, infant, and young child nutrition and on diet-related non-communicable diseases that member states of the World Health Organization adopt along with the governments’ delivery against their commitments.

The latest report contains statistics and data from 140 countries around the world indicating that almost every country in the world now faces a serious nutrition-related challenge. In order to determine the significant burden of malnutrition in every country, the report uses three important trends as indicators. These are as follows:

1) Childhood stunting: Children are too short for their age due to lack of nutrients and therefore, suffering irreversible damage to brain capacity,

2) Anaemia in women of reproductive age: This is a serious condition that can have long term health impacts for both mother and child.

3) Overweight adult women: This has been a rising concern as women are disproportionately affected by the global obesity epidemic.

The report found the vast majority (about 88%) of countries studied face a serious burden of two or three of these forms of malnutrition. As far as India is concerned, the numbers are disappointing. About 38 per cent of the children under five are affected by stunting and about 21 per cent of children under 5 have been defined as ‘wasted’ or ‘severely wasted’ – which means that they do not weigh enough for their height. Moreover, 51 per cent of the women of reproductive age suffer from anemia and more than 22 per cent of adult women are overweight. The percentage of overweight men in the country is slightly lower and stands at 16 per cent of adult men.

While the report does indicate that India has shown some progress in addressing childhood stunting for children under the age of 5, it presents worse outcomes in the percentage of reproductive-age women with anaemia, and is off course in terms of reaching its targets for reducing adult obesity and diabetes.

The report found that there is a critical need for better data on nutrition - many countries don’t have enough data to track the nutrition targets they signed up to. The Global Nutrition Report 2017 concludes that the five core areas for development which nutrition can contribute to and also benefit from are sustainable food production, infrastructure, health systems, equity and inclusion and peace and stability.

Given these grim statistics, it is important to include iron-rich foods in your daily diet to meet your body's requirements and prevent the risk of deficiency. Here are the top three sources of iron that you can opt for as suggested by Nutritionist Shilpa Arora.

1. Beetroot and Amla: Beetroot contains lots of iron and the Vitamin C from amla helps in its absorption by the body. The juice of red beets and amla  strengthens the body's power to regenerate and re-activate the red blood cells and supplies the body with fresh oxygen

2. Fenugreek: The leaves of fenugreek help in blood formation, cooked leaves can be taken to prevent anemia. The seeds of fenugreek are also a valuable cure for anemia being rich in iron.

3. Jaggery: A person can obtain 3% of iron of daily value from 10 grams of jaggery.  Combining it with ginger juice facilitates iron absorption.

Inputs from the Global Nutrition Report 2017 and globalnutritionreport.org