K’taka LS seats worse than Bihar’s in child nutrition

 Karnataka has more parliamentary constituencies than Bihar and Odisha put together in the list of those with the worst child malnutrition. Shockingly, 12 out of 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in Jharkhand and 19 out of 29 in Madhya Pradesh figure in this list making them the states with the worst record in childhood malnutrition indicators. In contrast, 17 of Kerala’s 20 constituencies figure in the list of the best and none in the worst. This was revealed in a study done by a multidisciplinary team of academics from Harvard University, the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi, Tata Trust, and Niti Aayog. The study, reported in the Economic & Political Weekly, mapped data on childhood malnutrition from the national family health survey conducted in 2015-16 on to 543 parliamentary constituencies. It provides estimates for four child malnutrition indicators (stunting, underweight, wasting, and anaemia) for each constituency. A total of 72 PCs were in the top bracket of prevalence for all indicators — 12 in Jharkhand, 19 in Madhya Pradesh, 10 in Karnataka, six in Rajasthan and eight in Uttar Pradesh. Of the 70 PCs with the best record on all four indicators, 17 were in Kerala, nine were in West Bengal, and seven each in Odisha and Tamil Nadu. Overall, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and Kerala showed low prevalence of the four conditions of malnutrition and Jharkhand showed high prevalence. Interestingly, only 8 out of 80 PCs in Uttar Pradesh and 6 out of 40 in Bihar figured among the worst. Surprisingly, though Assam is considered a backward state, none of its constituencies figured among the worst and four out of its 14 PCs were among the best. In fact, none of the north eastern states figure in the list of the worst PCs. Seven out of 11 constituencies spread over the seven NE states other than Assam figure among the best. These include the two constituencies each that Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura have. The distribution of underweight (inadequate weight for age) and stunted (inadequate height for age caused by chronic malnutrition) children under five shows similar trends with Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, UP, Bihar and Chhattisgarh showing the highest burden. Three PCs in UP, Shrawasti, Kaisarganj and Bahraich, with over 60% of the children being stunted, showed the highest burden for stunting. Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala showed the lowest burden. Idukki in Kerala had the lowest burden of 13.7%. The PCs with the highest prevalence of underweight are Singhbhum in Jharkhand (60.9%), Puruliya in West Bengal (58.2%), and Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh (54.3%). Again, three PCs in Kerala fared best, with Kannur recording the lowest burden of 10.5%. Prevalence of wasting (low weight for height, usually the result of acute food shortage and/or disease) is highest in central and western India, particularly in MP, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand. Jamshedpur in Jharkhand had the highest prevalence of 40.6%. Parts of southern, eastern and northern India show the lowest rates with two PCs in Manipur having the lowest burden of 7.6%. The highest rates of anaemia (when haemoglobin level is below 11) were found mostly throughout central India, particularly in Madhya Pradesh, southern Rajasthan, Haryana, and Gujarat. Singhbum in Jharkhand (83.0%), Banswara in Rajasthan (79.3%), and Khargone in MP (79.1%) were the worst off.
Again the two PCs with the least prevalence of anaemia were Attingal and Kollam in Kerala with about 19.5%. The study found no constituency with high burden of stunting, underweight, wasting or anaemia within states with better nutrition outcomes. It did, however, find stand-out PCs in states with poor indicators. Future studies ought to try and find positive practices or characteristics in these constituencies that could be applied to other PCs, the authors urged.

Source: Times of India, 23/01/2019