Indian economic slowdown is leaving its infants hungry as only 10% are given acceptable diet

• India dropped seven spots to 102 in the global hunger index over the last decade, thanks to climate change and economic slowdown.
  
• India’s rank improved to 102 from 103 last year — lowest among the South Asian countries.
  
• According to the report, merely 10% of Indian infants are provided minimum acceptable diet.
  
• Globally, at least one in every three children under five years of age is undernourished or overweight, UNICEF said.

Climate change and economic slowdown is hurting the most vulnerable of its citizens--infants. India dropped seven spots to 102 in the Global Hunger Index over the last decade. International Food Policy Research Institute which comes out with the index has marked India as ‘serious’.

According to the report, merely 10% of Indian infants are provided with minimum acceptable diet. It also shows that infants and children below the age of five suffer the most. The index takes into account parameters like mortality rate and inadequate height and weight.

India’s rank is the lowest amongst all South Asian countries and even Pakistan -- which crawled up to 94th place.

“India’s child wasting rate is extremely high at 20.8%, the highest for any country in this report,” the report said.The states of Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra have the maximum share in wasting percentage, said the National Family Health Survey of 2015-16.

Globally, at least one in every three children under five years of age is either undernourished or overweight, UNICEF said.

Children were eating too little of the food they need and too much of what they don't need. It added that "poor diets are now the main risk factor for the global burden of disease", Efe news said.

The top spots in the GHI include countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba and Kuwait.

See also:
A third of Indian children will be stunted by 2022, thanks to malnutrition

India left out women from its largest child nutrition program: Study

Climate change, obesity, and malnutrition are strongly linked: Lancet report