Health

KEY POINTS

·         The Global Hunger Index report 2017 put India at number 100 in a list of 119 countries.

·         National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16) found 35.7% children aged less than 5 years were underweight, and 38.4% were stunted.

Ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF)

·         RUTF is also referred to as ‘Energy Dense Nutritious Food – EDNF’ due to its high calorific value.

·         It is a medical intervention to improve the nutrition intake of children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM).

·         It is a packaged paste of peanuts, oil, sugar, vitamins, milk powder and mineral supplements containing 520-550 kilocalories of energy per 100g.

Positives of RUTF

·         The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) supports community-based management along with RUTF to effectively tackle India’s malnutrition.

·         UNICEF notes that RUTF is safe, cost-effective and has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.

·         Out of the 20 million children worldwide suffering from acute malnutrition, about 10-15% received treatment through RUTF.

Negatives of RUTF

·         Traditional Food - Some studies have shown that children who were given RUTF found it too heavy to eat anything else afterward.

·         There are concerns that RUTF may replace nutritional best practices and family foods that children would normally be eating.

·         Also, this might encourage discontinuing breastfeeding in children older than six months.

·         Temproary Solution - A slip back to malnutrition once RUTF was stopped was also noticed in a considerable number of cases.

·         Without having an in-depth study of post-RUTF treated children in India, it is difficult to designate RUTF as a permanent solution.

·         Financial Burden - RUTF is an expensive medical intervention.

·         As over a third of all children aged under five years are stunted or underweight, RUTF will require massive financing.

Solutions

·         The Health Ministry is working to develop guidelines and a toolkit for early childhood development.

·         This is to better equip frontline workers for counselling families on nutrition and feeding practices.

·         Family-centric approach instead of food-centric approach for handling malnutrition is being mooted.

·         Counselling on family planning to ensure low birth weight babies aren’t born is another measure.

·         Ensuring regular meals for children through properly streamlining anganwadis will also significantly reduce malnourishment.