India has adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) along with the other members of the United Nations (UN). ‘Zero Hunger’ is one of the SDGs, which are to be met by the year 2030.
While India is one of the largest producers of various nutritional agricultural commodities in the world, millions are still starving in the most populated country of the world.
However, food insecurity used to be a major problem in India, but today, even as it is declining, half of its population still cannot afford a healthy diet. So the development is only meagre.
Here’s what you need to know.
What Does The Analysis Say?
The UN’s report, ‘State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ is published by five UN agencies and is a comparison between countries on the said agenda.
This year’s report, released on July 24, reveals that although the prevalence of hunger in India has declined from 21.4% (in 2004-2006) to 13.7% (in 2021-2023), 55.6% of the population is still not able to have access to a healthy diet in 2022.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a healthy diet as one having a variety of locally available food, which meets both energy and nutritional requirements and prevents non-communicable diseases, promoting growth and development.
There are policies already in place to cater to the problem of hunger, but not enough to solve that of undernourishment. For example, India runs the world’s largest free food programme that supplies 5 kg of cereals to about 810 million people, but this is limited to combating hunger only.
Moreover, other policies differ from one state to another. For instance, Tamil Nadu has adopted the scheme of providing a nutritious diet to school students by giving them eggs to eat, whereas a state like Uttar Pradesh has no such scheme.
Read More: ResearchED: Why Does India Have Third-Highest Percentage Of ‘Zero-Food Children’
Is India The Only One Dealing With This Problem?
While several other countries are dealing with the problems of hunger and undernourishment, India unexpectedly stands lower on the list. Given its GDP (Gross Domestic Product), India lies even lower than Bangladesh (an underdeveloped country), Sri Lanka (41%), Nepal (41%), Bhutan(5%), Maldives(2%), and various other middle-income countries.
56% of the Indian population cannot afford a healthy and balanced diet, which is much higher than the global average of 35%.
Hunger can be satiated by dense calorie and less nutritional food items, such as cheap, ultra-processed junk stuff like biscuits and savouries. The UN’s data reveals that with the increasing consumption of junk and packaged food, obesity has increased from 4.1% to 7.3% between 2012 and 2022, making India home to 71 million adults who are suffering from this problem.
The National Institute of Nutrition in May said that an unhealthy diet is one of the main reasons behind India’s disease burden. A healthy diet, made up of fruits, vegetables, dairy, plant and animal sources of protein, is costlier than a diet consisting of calories.
As the prices of pulses and vegetables are soaring with every passing day, and inflation is at an all-time high, more and more Indians are spending on cheap junk food to satisfy their hunger. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the cost of a healthy diet has risen by 3.3% in 2020.
Government data for 2022-2023 shows that the monthly per-capita family expenditure was mainly on processed food and beverages, accounting for a tenth of all expenses.
Therefore, while the strengthening and adequate implementation of the existing policies is important, new robust schemes to cater to the severe problem of undernourishment are equally crucial.
Image Credits: Google Images
Feature image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: Mint, Down to Earth, CNBC
This post is tagged under: Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, United Nations, UN, Zero Hunger, Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, National Institute of Nutrition, junk food, India, obesity, adults, data, analysis, report, Bangladesh, Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, diet, calorie, global, GDP, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, school, policies, schemes, World Health Organization, WHO, healthy
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