Stunting refers to a scenario where a child is too short for age due to chronic/recurrent malnutrition. It reflects long-term deprivation in nutrition, maternal health, sanitation, and socio-economic factors. In India India’s case as per 2025 data,37% children are still stunted.
Causes Behind Stunting in India
Socio-Cultural Factors
- Early marriage & teenage pregnancies: 7–8% girls aged between 15–19 yrs are mothers (NFHS-5).
- Poor childcare practices: Delayed breastfeeding, inadequate complementary feeding.
- Poor sanitation & hygiene: 35% rural households still practice open defecation leading to exposure towards infections & “environmental enteropathy.”
Economic Factors
- Poverty & food insecurity leading to dependence on rice-wheat diets, and low protein intake.
- Inflation makes pulses, milk, and fruits unaffordable for poor families.
Structural Factors
- Weak convergence between schemes such as health, ICDS, and sanitation.
- Poor Anganwadi coverage & inadequate dietary diversity.
- Regional disparities: Bihar (41%), U.P. (48%) vs Kerala (23%) [NFHS-5].
Health-Related Factors
- Anaemia prevalence: 67% children, 57% women are anaemic as per NFHS-5 which is often percolated to children.
- Recurrent childhood infections such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.
Government Interventions to address stunting:
- POSHAN Abhiyaan (2018): Reduce stunting, anaemia, low birth weight.
- Mission Saksham Anganwadi & Poshan 2.0 (2021): Strengthen ICDS and child health services at grassroots level.
- Anaemia Mukt Bharat (2018): Reduce anaemia across age groups especially among women.
- Mid-Day Meal / PM-POSHAN: Improve school nutrition and child health.
- Swachh Bharat Mission: Reduce open defecation.
- Other measures: TPDS, MGNREGA, National Food Security Act, National Rural Drinking Water Programme.
Challenges in Implementation:
Weak Convergence of Schemes
- Nutrition is multi-dimensional (health, food, sanitation, women & child development).
- Ministries often work in silos leading to lack of synergy between ICDS, NHM, PDS, SBM.
Social & Cultural Resistance
- In several states, eggs in mid-day meals/Anganwadi food face opposition on religious/vegetarian grounds.
- Traditional dietary practices restrict protein and micronutrient diversity.
Inadequate Funding & Resources
- Public health expenditure remains at just 1.3% of GDP.
- Anganwadi centres underfunded leading to irregular supply of supplementary nutrition to children.
Governance Issues
- Shortage of trained frontline workers such as Anganwadi workers, and ASHAs.
- Weak monitoring, irregular data collection leading to delays in identifying malnourished children.
Socio-Economic Disparities
- States like Kerala, Punjab perform well while states like Bihar, U.P., Jharkhand remain laggards.
- Marginalized groups such as tribals, Dalits, and rural poor have much higher stunting levels.
Leakages & Distribution issues
- PDS suffers from corruption, exclusion/inclusion errors.
- Benefits often fail to reach the poorest
Way Forward
- Maternal & Child Health: Delay marriage, universal maternity entitlements, better antenatal care.
- Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture: Promote pulses, millets aligning with International Year of Millets 2023).
- Strengthen ICDS & Anganwadis: Ensure eggs, fortified foods, and local diets in meals.
- Sanitation & Hygiene: Consolidate gains of Swachh Bharat and ensure piped drinking water to every household.
- Community Engagement: Leverage SHGs, Panchayats, NGOs for behaviour change communication.
- Global Best Practices: Thailand reduced stunting from 50% to 25% (1980–88) through nutrition education and women’s empowerment which can be adapted in India.
- Data-Driven Monitoring: Strengthen POSHAN Tracker, conduct regular NFHS surveys.
Conclusion: Tackling the stunting problem requires a multi-sectoral, targeted approach combining nutrition, health, sanitation, women’s empowerment, and poverty alleviation aligning with the WHO Global Nutrition Target of reducing stunting by 40% by 2025.
+1 Value addition:
- POSHAN Abhiyaan target (2018): Reduce to 25% by 2022.
- Stunting leads to Human capital loss, Poor cognitive development, and low learning outcomes.
- World Bank points out 2–3% GDP loss annually due to stunting.
- Stunting leads to perpetuation of Intergenerational poverty cycle affecting the poor and marginalised the most.
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