Global Nutrition report, 2021

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In news-The Global Nutrition Report, 2021 (GNR) has been released recently.

Key highlights of the report-

The annual Global Nutrition Report annual report sets out progress towards global nutrition targets.
It also evaluates the impact of poor diets on human health and the planet, assesses the nutrition financing landscape and provides a comprehensive overview of reporting on past Nutrition for Growth commitments.
The Global Nutrition Report was conceived following the first Nutrition for Growth Initiative Summit (N4G) in 2013 as a mechanism for tracking the commitments made by 100 stakeholders spanning governments, aid donors, civil society, the UN and businesses.
As per the GNR, as many as 12 million people died prematurely in 2018 due to risks linked to consumption of an imbalanced and unhealthy diet.
These risks included non-communicable diseases (NCD).
The increase of premature deaths due to poor diets was the highest in Africa (22 per cent), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (8 per cent).
Tobacco smoking is said to the leading cause of preventable deaths in the world. But recent estimates indicate that unbalanced diet has superseded tobacco smoking as the leading cause of premature deaths in the world.
The report says that the world is off track to meet five out of six global maternal, infant and young children nutrition (MIYCN) targets, on stunting, wasting, low birth weight, anaemia and childhood obesity.
Worldwide, 149.2 million children under 5 years of age are stunted, 45.4 million are wasted and 38.9 million are overweight. Over 40% of all men and women (2.2 billion people) are now overweight or obese.

In fact, no country in the world was ‘on course’ to achieve the target for obesity.

India’s performance-

As per the GNR, India has made no progress on anaemia.
There has been a rise in anaemic Indian women(age group 15-49 years ) since 2016. In 2016, 52.6 per cent of Indian women were anaemic. But in 2020, 53 per cent were found to be anaemic.
India is ‘on course’ to meet three targets for maternal, infant and young child nutrition (MIYCN).
India is also among 23 countries that have made no progress or are worsening on reducing ‘childhood wasting’. Wasting refers to children whose weight is low-for-their height.
Over 17 per cent of Indian children under 5 years of age are affected. This figure is much higher than the average for Asia where close to 9 per cent of children are affected.
India is ‘off-course’ in meeting 7 of the 13 global nutrition targets.
These include sodium intake, raised blood pressure (both men and women), obesity (both men and women) and diabetes (both men and women).
Some 6.2 percent of adult (aged 18 years and over) women and 3.5 percent of adult men are living with obesity in the country.
India is among 53 countries ‘on course’ to meet the target for stunting. But over 34 per cent of children under 5 years of age are still affected.
This figure is higher than average for Asia, where close to 22 per cent are affected by stunting.
The country is also among 105 countries that are ‘on course’ to meet the target for ‘childhood overweight’ and among 53 countries ‘on course’ to meet the target for ‘exclusive breast feeding’.
Some 58 per cent of infants in the age group 0-5 months are exclusively breastfed in India.
India does not have adequate data on prevalence of ‘low birth weight’.