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Indians Are Getting Shorter In Height At Concerning Rate
- A new paper published on September 17 says that while the average height of people across the world is increasing, the average height of Indians is actually falling.
- The paper examines the trends in the heights of Indian men and women between the age groups of 15-25 and 26-50 based on the National Family and Health Surveys – and concludes that India’s indicators are actually getting worse.
- This is a worrying situation.
- Height is one of the most basic indicators of nutrition as well as public health and is directly linked to a country’s standard of living. It also reflects social and economic factors such as income and caste.
- Thus a fall in average heights indicates India is regressing on public health as well as economic goals.
- “Trends of adult height in India from 1998 to 2015: Evidence from the National Family and Health Survey”, by Krishna Kumar Choudhary, Sayan Das, and Prachinkumar Ghodajkar from the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- compared data from three NFHS rounds – NFHS-II (1998–’99), III (2005–’06), IV (2015–’16) – to look at changes in height over the years.
- NFHS is carried out by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and is one of the foremost Indian sources to study public health and evaluate existing policies.
- The survey is representative of households across India at both the state and the national level. The latest NFHS-V survey (2019-’20) was conducted across 6 lakh households.
- The researchers found out that between NFHS-III (2005-’06) and NFHS-IV (2015-’16), Indians in the 15-50 age bracket – with the exception of women between the ages 26-50 – have experienced a decline in their average height.
- Women between 15-25 saw a decline in their mean height by 0.12 cm, while women between 26-50 showed an improvement by 0.13 cm. During the same period, men between 15-25 saw a decline of 1.10 cm in their mean height and those between 26-50 years had a decline of 0.86 cm.
- While height is influenced by genetics, non-genetic factors such as nutrition and environment play a significant role as well. Variables such as household characteristics (such as number of siblings and class) and caste have a bearing on an individual’s nutrition and growth.
- Height is also highly correlated with wealth. People from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes communities are, on average, shorter than those belonging to Other Backward Class and Upper Castes.
- Thus, a person’s height is a marker of physical well-being and standard of living.
- Studying height could therefore lead to a better understanding of the impact of health policies.
- Height, in turn, is also linked to productivity. According to World Bank estimates, a 1% loss in adult height due to childhood stunting can lead to a 1.4% loss in economic productivity.
- Given the importance of height in measuring public health, the results of the study are worrying. This is especially so when the average height of humans worldwide is increasing.
- India has had a history of faring poorly on health metrics. Currently, it is 94 out of 107 countries, as per the 2020 Global Hunger Index. It has one-third of the world’s stunted children.
- It also has the most number of children who are underweight according to their height.
- public health indicators seem to be getting worse.
- As per NHFS-V (2019-’20), which has released its phase-1 data from 22 states and Union Territories, child nutrition levels have further worsened since NHFS-IV (the dataset used by this paper).
- This could also mean an increase in child stunting, which would be the first time this has happened in twenty years.
- In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 has impacted public health severely.
- A survey conducted showed that 53%-77% respondents were eating less during the pandemic than the period before. Further, data from the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy shows a sharp decline in the consumption of nutrient and protein rich food, across all income groups, during the pandemic.