{"id":126776,"date":"2021-08-17T19:18:26","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T13:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=126776"},"modified":"2021-08-18T09:22:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T03:52:01","slug":"nutrition-security-should-be-part-of-our-covid-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/nutrition-security-should-be-part-of-our-covid-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Nutrition Security should be part of our covid response"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.livemint.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=178c63e02c4&amp;imageview=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LiveMint<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance: <\/strong>To study the nutritional status of India<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis: <\/strong>The nutrition scenario is not looking good in India. The pandemic has further worsened it. There is an urgent need for policymakers to focus on nutrition.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Findings of India\u2019s 2015-16 Health Survey<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One in every three children in India is stunted.<\/li>\n<li>More than 50% of adolescent girls and pregnant women are anaemic.<\/li>\n<li>Almost 80% of mothers do not receive full antenatal care during their pregnancy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This was the situation when all government-run health and nutrition programmes were fully functional and easily accessible. Now, the situation has much more worsened during the corona times. Pandemic has had a negative impact on people:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is a <strong>decline in uptake of health services<\/strong> like antenatal checkups, counselling, consumption of micronutrient supplements among pregnant women<\/li>\n<li>There is a <strong>decrease in dietary diversity<\/strong> due to food insecurity led to adverse consequences on maternal and child nutrition<\/li>\n<li>There is a<strong> reduction in food intake<\/strong> among 90% of the households<\/li>\n<li><strong>Disruption in the supply of Mid-Day Meals<\/strong> because of the closing of schools.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Loss of jobs<\/strong> has made the houses more vulnerable as now they struggle for basic food<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How to address the nutrition crisis?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Food and Nutrition Security: <\/strong>It is crucial to address the \u201chidden hunger\u201d problem, especially among vulnerable communities like pregnant &amp; lactating women, children\u2019s etc while making policies of food security programmes in accordance with current needs.\n<ul>\n<li>Pandemic emphasized the need for local nutritious food &amp; community-based initiatives to tackle the problem of food and nutrition insecurity. Poshan Matka Initiative in MP and promotion of Nutrition Gardens in UP is a step in this direction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong style=\"background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Micro Nutrient supplementation: <\/strong><span style=\"background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Various initiatives have been done by many state governments like distribution of iron and folic acid, calcium tablets to pregnant &amp; adolescent girls, Vitamin A supplementation to children to address the nutritional requirements &amp; immunity problems.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong style=\"background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Food Fortification: <\/strong><span style=\"background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">It is the process of deliberately increasing the content of essential micronutrients to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply. Various states like MP, Kerala, and Odisha have introduced fortified staples &amp; rice in their social safety net programmes. The centre should also adopt fortified staples nationwide in their safety net programmes<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Way forward<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We must realize that nutrition cannot wait.<\/li>\n<li>Policymakers should look beyond calorie intake and focus on nutrition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Terms to know<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/mid-day-meal-scheme-govt-decides-to-provide-monetary-assistance-through-dbt\/\"><strong>Mid-Day Meal Scheme<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: LiveMint Relevance: To study the nutritional status of India Synopsis: The nutrition scenario is not looking good in India. The pandemic has further worsened it. There is an urgent need for policymakers to focus on nutrition. Findings of India\u2019s 2015-16 Health Survey: One in every three children in India is stunted. More than 50%&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/nutrition-security-should-be-part-of-our-covid-response\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Nutrition Security should be part of our covid response<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5480,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[3005,212,8707,356],"class_list":["post-126776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-covid-19-2","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-issues-relating-to-hunger","tag-malnutrition","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700784061,"cached_date":1704879944},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}