Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar on Monday expressed confidence that under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India will be successful in taking up the eradication of malnutrition as a 'Jan Andolan'.
She said that nutrition is important for the health of a country and is related to the nation's development.
Her remarks comes up during a joint webinar on the "Importance of nutrition in first 1000 days, Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) and Prevention and Management of Malnutrition" during the fourth 'Rashtriya Poshan Maah' today.
The Minister highlighted that "under Ayushman Bharat scheme, the government has focused on improving the overall health of the people, while under Rashtriya Swasthya Mission, healthy life-cycle approach to reducing malnutrition is being undertaken."
She gave the examples of Anemia Mukt Bharat and Janani Suraksha Karyakaram to this end.
Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development, Dr Munjpara Mahendrabhai who was also present at the webinar highlighted that community participation and inter-ministerial coordination between the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Ministery of Health and Family Welfare and other ministries will go a long way towards ensuring malnutrition free India.
The Minister also informed that strong efforts are being made to not only raise awareness about healthy diets but also provide access to diverse, nutritious, affordable and agro-climatically suitable diets by setting up 'Poshan Vatikas'.
Prof. Arun Singh, Department of Neonatology, AIIMS Jodhpur and Advisor, Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK), emphasized that the country has to ensure good nutrition, stimulation and protection of women and children, especially pregnant women, since the development of the neural network of children begins from the prenatal period.
Prof. Anura Kurpad, Department of Physiology, St. John's Medical College, Bengaluru, informed that there can be different types of malnutrition but the most common in India is undernutrition where 40 per cent of children are stunted. He recommended public health intervention to ensure dietary diversity.
Prof. H P S Sachdev, Sitaram Bhartiya Institute of Science and Research, New Delhi, stated that 'Acute malnutrition' is a misnomer as it only emphasizes on food solutions.
He said that nutrition, prevention of illness and consumption of homemade food is equally important. He also stated that there is no persuasive evidence to favour special products over homemade food since caloric and dietary needs can be met by specially formulated homemade food.
( With inputs from ANI )
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