Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T07:59:02.947Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Malnutrition and anaemia among adult women in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2019

Susmita Bharati ,
Manoranjan Pal ,
Soumendu Sen  and
Premananda Bharati
Susmita Bharati
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
Manoranjan Pal
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
Soumendu Sen
Affiliation:
International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India
Premananda Bharati*
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
*
*Corresponding author. Email: pbharati@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The latest National Family Health Survey conducted in 2015–16 (NFHS-4) showed that malnutrition and anaemia still pose huge health challenges in India. Data on 651,642 adult non-pregnant women aged 15–49 years were taken from the survey to study the nutritional and anaemia statuses of adult women by Indian zone and state. The relationships of these two variables with the women’s urban/rural place of residence, education level, religion and eating habits, and wealth index of the family, were assessed. Body Mass Index (BMI) and haemoglobin level were used to assess nutritional status and level of anaemia, respectively. The results show that in 2015–16 in India the percentages of underweight and obese/overweight people were 22.4% and 18.4%, respectively. The percentages of undernutrition and overnutrition were more or less same. The percentage of underweight people was higher in the middle belt region of India. Zones with high levels of overweight or obesity were concentrated in the West, North and South zones. A comparison of the two national-level data sets, i.e. NFHS-4 and NFHS-3, showed that the prevalences of undernutrition and anaemia reduced by 13 and 5 percentage points, respectively, from NFHS-3 to NFHS 4, i.e. over the 10-year period from 2004–05 to 2015–16, whereas overnutrition increased by 4 percentage points during this period. Analysis of possible socio-demographic factors and eating habits thought to influence underweight, obesity and anaemia revealed substantive causal relations. More specifically, education and eating habit were found to influence underweight, overweight or obesity and anaemia significantly. The nutritional status of a woman was also found to depend on household income.

Keywords

MalnutritionAnaemiaNFHS-4
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 51 , Issue 5 , September 2019 , pp. 658 - 668
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press, 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Basu, AM (1989) Is discrimination in food really necessary in explaining sex differentials in childhood mortality? Population Studies 43, 193–210.Google Scholar
Bharati, S (2013) Dual burden of malnutrition among Indian women: a comparative analysis between NFHS-3 and NFHS-2. In Bose K (ed.) Human Malnutrition: Twin Burdens of Undernutrition and Overnutrition. Nova Science Publishers, Hauppauge, New York, pp. 165–176.Google Scholar
Deaton, A and Dreze, J (2009) Food and nutrition in India: facts and interpretations Economic and Political Weekly 44, 42–65.Google Scholar
DeMayer, EM and Adiels-Tegman, M (1998) Prevalence of anaemia in the World. World Health Statistical Quarterly 38, 302–316.Google Scholar
Dreze, J (1993) Review: nutrition and health in rural India. Economic and Political Weekly 28, 276–277.Google Scholar
Dunn, OJ and Clark, VA (1974) Applied Statistics: Analysis of Variance and Regression. John Wiley & Sons, Toronto.Google Scholar
Garn, SM (1986) Family-line and socioeconomic factors in fatness and obesity. Nutrition Review 44, 381–386.Google Scholar
Godfrey, K (1992) Simple linear regression in medical research. In Bailar JC and Mosteller F (eds) Medical Uses of Statistics, 2nd edition. NEJM Books, Boston, pp. 201–232.Google Scholar
Heaver, R (1989) Improving Family Planning, Health and Nutrition Outreach in India. World Bank Discussion Paper No. 59, World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
IASC, (2005) Guidelines for Gender-based Violence Interventions: Humanitarian Settings Focusing on Prevention of and Response to Sexual Violence in Emergency. Implement Safe Food Security and Nutrition Action Sheet 6.1, Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), Geneva.Google Scholar
IFPRI (2015) Actions and Accountability to Advance Nutrition and Sustainable Development. Global Nutrition Report, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
IIPS (2017) National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 2015–16. IIPS. Mumbai, India.Google Scholar
IIPS and Macro International (2007) National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), 2005–06. IIPS. Mumbai, India.Google Scholar
Mohanram, M, Kulkarni, KA and Reddy, V (1977) Hematological studies in vitamin A deficient children. International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research 47, 389–393.Google Scholar
NCD-Ris, C (2016) Trends in adult body-mass index in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014: a pooled analysis of 1698 population-based measurements studies with 19·2 million participants. Lancet 387, 1377–1396.Google Scholar
Obaid, TA (2004) Thirty First Session of the Standing Committee on Nutrition. UNFPA, New York.Google Scholar
Radhakrishna, R (1992) Trends in nutrition: emerging challenges. Nutrition: need for effective intervention [two articles]. The Economic Times of India, 10–11th February 1992. URL: https://www.unscn.org/web/archives_resources/files/India1992.pdf Google Scholar
Ramachandran, P (1989) Nutrition in pregnancy. In Gopalan C and Kaur S (eds) Women and Nutrition in India. Special Publication No. 5, Nutrition Foundation of India, New Delhi.Google Scholar
Rotimi, C, Okosun, I, Johnson, L, Owoaje, E, Lawoyin, T, Asuzu, M, Kaufman, J et al. (1999) The distribution and mortality impact of chronic energy deficiency among adult Nigerian men and women. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 53, 734–739.Google Scholar
Sen, A (1988) Family and food: sex bias in poverty. In Srinivasan TN and Bardhan KP (eds) Rural Poverty in South Asia. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 453–472.Google Scholar
Sivakumar, B, Nair, KM, Sreeramulu, D, Suryanarayana, P, Ravinder, P, Shatrugna, V et al. (2006) Effect of micronutrient supplement on health and nutritional status of schoolchildren: biochemical status. Nutrition 22 (Supplement 1), S15–S25.Google Scholar
Stevens, J (1996) Applied Multivariate Statistics for the Social Sciences. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah.Google Scholar
Yamada, M, Murakami, K, Sasaki, S, Takahashi, Y and Okubo, H (2008) Soft drink intake is associated with diet quality even among young Japanese women with low soft drink intake. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 108(12), doi: 10.1016/j.jada.2008.09.033.Google Scholar
WHO (1998) Obesity: Preventing and Managing the Global Epidemic. Report of a WHO Consultation on Obesity, World Health Organization, Geneva.Google Scholar