Despite Supposed Food Assistance In India, People Are Starving To Death
Access to healthy and nutritious foods within India has been increasingly replaced by a large supply of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods. The existence of the dual malnutrition problems suggests a need for policy makers to support options which measure nutritional output, as opposed to calories, when deciding policies to ensure a well fed society. Thus, the causes of undernourishment and of death from hunger and malnutrition of children are immensely complex, and they cannot be simply attributed to war or natural catastrophes. They are primarily due to social injustice, to political and economic exclusion and to discrimination.
Children of families with lower socioeconomic standing are faced with sub-optimal growth. While children in similar communities have shown to share similar levels of nutrition, child nutrition is also differential from family to family depending on the mother's characteristics, household ethnicity, and place of residence. It is expected that with improvements in socio-economic welfare, child nutrition will also improve. In 3 schools in Andhra Pradesh, India, nearly 200 underprivileged children come to school hungry every day.
Also, other Indians are strictly vegan, which means, they do not consume any sort of animal product, including dairy and eggs. This is a serious problem when inadequate protein is consumed because 56% of poor Indian households consume cereal to consume protein. It is observed that the type of protein that cereal contains does not parallel to the proteins that animal products contain . This phenomenon is most prevalent in the rural areas of India where more malnutrition exists on an absolute level. Whether children are of the appropriate weight and height is highly dependent on the socio-economic status of the population.
Antaryami Dash of Save The Children also highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on the crisis of hunger and undernutrition. However, Mr Dash says that the Global Hunger Index is helpful as a tool for prioritising our national programs. We need to construe the index more carefully and further unpack the interplay between stunting, wasting and mortality.
Many were already suffering from malnutrition because of destructive government policies and terrible conditions at residential schools. The food crisis of 2008 had led several developing countries to face food riots. Whether or not will we be able to avert the country's food crisis hangs in front of the political parties in Feeding India NGO power. In an interview, local activist Ajit Panda said that he had approached the state administration to provide the brother and sister with an Antodaya card, which fetches 35 kg of subsidised rice per month.