According to the latest available NFHS-4 data 37% of children under the age of 5 in 15 states are stunted.
India is staring at a dual problem today when it comes to malnutrition. While over a third of the country's children are showing signs of stunting - a direct result of malnutrition - there is another group that is fighting obesity. Both these groups though are severely undernourished.
"The tragedy in India is that we have undernutrition in childhood, but as we step into adulthood, because of the wrong food habits, there is obesity. You haven't increased the protein or muscle content," said Dr Armida Fernandez, founder trustee of SNEHA and former dean of Sion Hospital.
According to data from the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), as many as 83,068 children below the age of six have been categorised as severely underweight in Maharashtra alone in 2015-16. It is a 5.8% rise when compared to data from the previous years.
SNEHA too runs an intervention programme in Dharavi in association with the civic body and ICDS, reaching out to over 3,00,000 people.
Dr Fernandez added that malnutrition is a problem that involves multiple sectors, starting right with the way a girl child is treated and fed over generations. "It is a life cycle approach. Not just the baby, but the pregnant woman also has to be taken care of. Breastfeeding and counselling the mother to feed the baby well will go a long way," she said.
'Teach mothers to breastfeed the right way'
A view that Dr Rupal Dalal who works with the Foundation of Mother and Child Health (FMCH) seconds: "It is important to teach the woman the right way to breastfeed. Health care workers need to counsel the mother on the right kind of nutrition at every point of contact with her."
Such large scale stunting is also likely to become an economic problem. "The physical and mental potential of the child is reduced due to stunting. S/he will continue to stay in the poverty cycle," explained Dr Dalal.
Migrants worst hit
But those living in urban slums are still better off than the migrants workers, who move around in search of seasonal employment. They are the ones who struggle to access even the government welfare schemes due, as they are not present at their place of residence when enrollment drives take place.
"They are truly stateless individuals ? absent from their states of origin and not recognised officially by their states of temporary residence," according to the article on migrant and medical refugees authored by Dr Anurag Bhargava of the Jan Swasthya Sahajog and published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.
On the plus side though, the extreme cases of kwashiorkor is no longer commonly seen, as it was a few decades ago, at least in Mumbai. "The classic cases with extremely high mortality rates are no longer seen," explained Dr Fernandez. "Change is happening, but very slowly," she signed off.
What latest ICDS figures for Maharashtra say
1) 83,068 children below the age of six in Maharashtra are underweight
2) Figure is a rise of 4,595 cases over the previous years
3) Reversal of trend in Maharashtra, which was showing a reduction in malnutrition levels
3) Highest number of underweight children from Nanded, Beed and Hingoli
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Underweight")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}