More than half of Indian population unable to afford healthy diet: UN report

A recent report by the United Nationshas claimed that more than half of India's total population (55.6 per cent) is unable to afford a healthy diet. Despite the number decreasing each year consistently, it remains higher than the average of all the South Asian countries (53.1 per cent), except Pakistan (58 per cent).

In 2017, the proportion of the population not being able to afford a healthy diet in India was 69.5 per cent, which reduced further to 57.1 per cent in 2019 before witnessing an uptick (61.2 per cent) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the numbers have steadily declined.

The data has been presented by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)in itsState of FoodSecurity and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report, which wasjointly publishedwith four other UN agencies, includingUNICEF.

"A healthy diet comprises four key aspects: diversity (within and across food groups), adequacy (sufficiency of all essential nutrients compared to requirements), moderation (foods and nutrients that are related to poor health outcomes) and balance (energy and macronutrient intake)," the report described.

The study used the cost of a healthy diet (CoHD) indicator and compared it to national income distributions to estimate the prevalence of unaffordability and the number of people unable to afford such a diet.

"In Asia, the average CoHD rose from 3.84 PPP dollars in 2021 to 4.20 PPP dollars, with Eastern Asia and Southern Asia recording the highest average CoHD at 5.34 PPP dollars and 4.28 PPP dollars, respectively," the report noted.

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Additionally, the report stated that India remains home to nearly 194.6 million undernourished people - the highest in any country across the globe.The data is from 2021-23 but shows that the population of undernourished people had declined from 246.5 million, recorded between 2004-06.

GHI report

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) report published last year ranked India 111th among 125 countries with a score of 28.7. However, the Indiangovernmentcalled the rankings "flawed", adding that they failed to depict the true position of the country.

“The GHI continues to be a flawed measure of hunger and does not reflect India’s true position. The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues," the Ministry of Women and Child Development said at the time.

The report, prepared by German NGO Welt Hunger Hilfe and Irish NGO Concern Worldwide, claimed that the child wasting rate(a child who is too thin for his or her height) in India was 18.7 per cent, which is the highest on the global level and signalled acute undernutrition.

(With inputs from agencies)