How Can We Help Children Take Charge Of Tackling Malnutrition?

Nutrition is a complex challenge in India. 38.4% of children under 5 years in India are chronically undernourished (stunted). Stunting in children is often linked to malnutrition in adolescence for their parents, especially for girls. 28.9% of adolescents aged 10–19 years are classified as malnourished according to BMI-for-age in India. 32.2% of adolescents aged 10–19 years are classified as malnourished according to BMI-for-age in Rajasthan.

Malnourishment stems from a lack of awareness regarding nutrition as well as a lack of access to solutions to improve one’s nutritional status. To help tackle this, it is essential to help children learn about their malnutrition and how to tackle it, in their pre-adolescent and adolescent years. These years offer a key window for shaping lifetime habits and developing children into agents of change.

As a part of National Nutrition Month or Poshan Maah in India, this dialogue will convene experts from various fields to discuss the following issues:

• Scope of the malnutrition challenge in India
• Steps that children can take to tackle this challenge
• Barriers that hinder children from taking action and how to address them
• Examples/stories of children who have helped tackle malnutrition in their communities

Moderator: Niranjan Kanjolia, Rajasthan Patrika

Panellists:

1. Dr Joshita Lamba, Deputy Lead, Food Fortification Resource Centre, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India
2. Rewant Jaipal, District Project Manager, Urmul Trust, Rajasthan
3. Deep Jyoti Sonu Brahma, Founder Director, Farm2Food Foundation, Assam
4. Surbhi Pareek, dietitian
5. Archana Sinha, CEO and Co-founder, Nourishing Schools Foundation