India has fared worse than even some sub-Saharan countries in terms of number of children who are stunted, according to a new report on global nutrition.
With 38.7% children in the country suffering from stunting, India ranks 114 in the list of 132 countries surveyed. The percentage is much higher than the global prevalence of stunting at 23.8%, as per the latest Global Nutrition Report (GNR).
"At current rates of decline, India will achieve the current stunting rates of Ghana or Togo by 2030 and that of China by 2055," noted the report.
Currently, China ranks 26, which is 106 notches above India, while Ghana and Togo rank 52 and 80, respectively. However, India and many other countries are winning their fight against this form of malnutrition, the report says. "India almost doubled the rate of stunting reduction in the past 10 years compared with the previous decade. That is highly significant given that India is home to more than one-third of the world's stunted children," GNR said.
Other important finding of the survey is that families with people suffering from cardio-vascular diseases spend 30% of their income on treatment of the ailment. The report also noted an increase of nearly 58% in the cost of hospitalisation due to cardio-vascular diseases in the country in the period between 1995 and 2004.
"A recent systematic review of the global impact of non-communicable diseases on household income found that cardiovascular disease patients in India spent 30% of their annual family income on direct cardio-vascular disease health care. The mean out-of-pocket cost per hospitalisation increased from US $364 in 1995 to US $575 in 2004," the report noted.
Giving the data for other diseases, it said 9.5% adults in India were suffering from diabetes as opposed to 9% of the global population. It said India ranked at 104 among 190 countries surveyed for diabetes.
The study also noted that most countries, including India, were off course when it came to meeting targets in fighting obesity which was becoming a "staggering global challenge". The report is an annual assessment of countries' progress in meeting global nutrition targets established by the World Health Assembly and commitments made at the Nutrition for Growth Summit in 2013.
