Eat right
G M.SUBBA RAO
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Malnutrition impedes the developmental process of a country.
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K. Ramesh Babu
When your mom says, "eat well to grow well!" she does not mean eat `more', but eat `right'. Proper nutrition is not only a pre-requisite for your physical growth but also for your over-all development. Nutrition and national development are two inter-dependent issues.
The aim of development must be to improve the conditions of the people, and to ensure freedom from hunger and malnutrition. This gives the people opportunity for participation in productive endeavours, enriching the quality of life. Improved nutritional status of the people could indeed become an important instrument for national development through improved productivity. In other words, poverty is a definite indicator of prevalence of malnutrition, but economic growth may not be a definite indicator of nutritional well-being.
In countries like India, the scourge of malnutrition impedes the developmental process. Malnutrition in the form of under-nutrition or deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals continues to cause severe illness or morbidity among millions of people. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of women are affected by iron deficiency anaemia and about 49 per cent of the population are at risk of iodine deficiency (National Family Health Survey (NFHS) - 2, 1998-99) and millions of children are affected by insufficient vitamin A. Because of their vulnerability to disease and infection, the undernourished usually remain less productive, and so get stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty and malnutrition. and seldom come out of it.
NFHS, 1998 and the Diet and Nutritional status of Rural Population, 2001 of the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) estimate that 51.8 per cent of married women in the age group 15 to 49 years and 56 per cent of married adolescent women in the age group 15 to 19 years suffer from anaemia. Due to these severe deficiencies in mothers, low birth weight (LBW) babies (birth weight is less than 2.5 kg.) are born to them. These LBW children are likely to grow up to be malnourished adults who are vulnerable to the incidence of chronic diseases. In 1978, the then World Health Assembly defined a goal to reduce LBW rate to less than 10 per cent by 2000 A.D. and our National Nutrition Policy also readily adopted this goal. Unfortunately, in India the rate is still hovering around 30 per cent over the last three decades.
Another facet of malnutrition is negative lifestyle and eating wrong. As the population goes up the socio-economic scale and as the purchasing power increases, cereal intake is likely to decline and the intake of sugar and fats generally increases. Convenience and fast foods find increasing acceptance, which leads to over-weight. Using the existing World Health Organisation (WHO) standards, data from 79 developing countries and a number of industrialised countries suggests that about 22 million children under five years of age are overweight worldwide (WHO-1998). Studies reveal beyond doubt that obesity in childhood and adolescence is associated with various health problems, and its persistence into adulthood leads to ill-health ranging from increased risk of premature death to several non-fatal but debilitating conditions (like diabetes, coronary heart diseases and cancer) that affect productivity.
So better nutrition is a result socio-economic development. But improved nutrition can be an important and valuable instrument in promoting socio-economic development. The strength of a nation depends on the strength of its people. When children are healthy, they grow up to be healthy adults who are strong and well nourished with energy, efficiency and courage to solve problems, create great works of art, contribute to scientific advances and live their daily lives with dignity and joy, ultimately advancing civilisation to new heights.
If we accept that people are `opportunities' and not `problems', we have to accept that their physical and mental well-being will obviously have their impact on national development. Realise that any investment on your food and nutrition is investment in `human capital'. So, when your mom says eat well, remember you are eating not for your well being alone but also for the nation's well being.
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