India is home to the highest number of stunted (low height for age) and wasted (low weight for height) children in the world, according to the Global Nutrition Report 2018 .
India has 46.6 million stunted children (about a third of the total number of stunted children), the highest, followed by Nigeria (13.9 mn) and Pakistan (10.7 mn). The three countries account for half the stunted children worldwide.
Districts in central and northern India have the highest number of stunted children. In Bahraich district in Uttar Pradesh, 65.1% of the children are stunted, the highest in the country. Adjoining districts Shrawasti and Balrampur have the second and third highest number of stunted children.
Six out of 10 districts where stunting among children was the highest were in Uttar Pradesh. The following map takes a look at the prevalence of stunting across districts:
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A comparison with the Multidimensional Poverty Index (right) shows that many of the poorest districts also have the highest prevalence of stunting. The higher the MPI, the worse of the district.
Alirajpur | 0.402 |
Shrawasti | 0.393 |
Jhabua | 0.37 |
Bahraich | 0.366 |
Balrampur | 0.35 |
Barwani | 0.348 |
Araria | 0.346 |
Madhepura | 0.337 |
Purnia | 0.334 |
Malkangiri | 0.327 |
Slow improvement
Children from tribal communities fare the worst in stunting and wasting, captured by the Z-score, which is a comparitive measure of physical development of children. A child whose Z-score is zero would be as tall as the average child in a reference population while a child whose score is negative would be stunted.
India lags
In India, two out of five children are stunted, which is far higher than the global average of 21%. Wasting characterises one in five children, also higher than the global mean. Explore the interactive here:
