Running head: DOUBLE BURDEN OF MALNUTRITION DOUBLE BURDEN OF MALNUTRITION Name of the student: Name of the university: Author note:
1 DOUBLE BURDEN OF MALNUTRITION Introduction The double burden of nutrition can be defined as the characteristics of a country where there is a co-existence of under nutrition along with the disorders of overweight and obesity or also other diet-relatednon communicablediseasesnot only in the personal levelwithin individuals but also among households, population and across he life courses (Ramachandran, 2016).. It has been found from a statistical analysis conducted by WHO (World Health Organization) that in the year 2014, approximately 1.9 million adults were found above the age of 18 an older who were overweight. At the same time, it was also found that 462 million people were found underweight. . Again, 600 million people were found to be obese. It has been found that poor nutrition continues to cause death in children out of which half the population of children are under the age of 5. Low and middle income countries are facing such these consequences for about 30% faster than the high income countries and therefore, it has become one of the primary concerns of the nations about how to handle the condition strategically to reduce the double burden of malnutrition and give a proper quality life (Shankar et al., 2017). Etiology and epidemiology India is one of the south east countries which are facing the consequences of double burden of malnutrition in spite of a huge number of initiative been taken at a national level as well as an international level. However, there is a requirement to discuss the entire scenario that had contributed to the occurrence of such a situation in India. After the independence of India, policy makers and politicians have identified the importance of India as a developing country to recognize the importance of planned growth as well as economy emphasis on the on human resource development (Kosaka & Umezaki, 2017). However India has not yet been successful in
2 DOUBLE BURDEN OF MALNUTRITION overcoming the problems of poverty, communicable diseases as well as under nutrition. Besides, it is also facing additional challenges which remain related to the affluence of industrialization, urbanization an economic betterment. Last two decades have seen the rate of obesity and overweight to increase along with prevalence of diabetes and cardiovascular issues in the urban areas (Mastorci et al., 2017). These disorders vary between urban and rural areas as well as in the different states and socio-economic strata. Case fatality rates are reported to be higher in the poor as well as rural population mainly because of the poor health care and delayed diagnosis and treatment or disorders in such classes. The population of India has been seen to increase from 934 million in the year 1996 to that of 1264 million in 2016 although there has been no effective strategies to tackle the population increase effectively. This is leading to failure of the strategies as the strategies are not being able to provide intervention at the similar case of exponential increase in population. Moreover, the technological advantage and increases access to healthcare have caused reduction in crude birth rate from 24.10 to 21.41. Crude death rate from 8.99 to 7.48 as well as natural growth rate from 1.51 to 1.39 percent, infant mortality rate from 63 to 38 per 1000 live birth for males and 64 to 39 for females. All these had resulted in steady growth of population but managing resources to provide food, education and helter to these increase number of population had not been conducted properly which had contributed to poor quality living, lack of access to quality food, proper education for maintaining lifestyles and maintain a steady health and well being (Bohman, 2015). Moreover population is also growing because the present generation has the highest number of the reproductive age groups, high fertility due to lack of contraception. Due to the vast increase in population number, government is facing he issues to tackle the situation as financial development of the nation though developing steadily but is not sufficient
3 DOUBLE BURDEN OF MALNUTRITION for providing good food and lifestyle resources to this huge population increase. As a result while the urban areas are getting cases of obesity and the rural areas are facing underweight issues. Lack of financial power in rural areasleads to compromised women health and sequentially to their babies, that result in compromised health and poor nutritional status. Moreover lack of education, developing healthcare services (incapable for treating huge number of patients) have also resulted in poor condition of rural areas. All these lead to child mortality and even though they survive, they carry on the trend in ageneration wise manner affecting the health of the nation. Determinants in this scenario Statistical analysis and researches conducted in India by eminent researchers have helped us to look deeper in the issue and has helped in pointing out some of the main determinants that had resulted in the present condition. India has been facing huge number of deaths in the under five children cohort. The main cause of malnutrition as well as death in the children has been contributed to three important reasons (Thow et al., 2016). The intergenerational perpetuation of malnutrition is first becauseoften underweight pregnant women increases the likelihood of giving birth to low weight babies which in turn becomes a strong predictor of the underweight in infancy as well as in early childhood. Secondly, malnutrition in the different lactating mothers raises the incidence of the children receiving reduce micro-nutrient consumption during feeding on breast milk. This again affects infant growth. The third reason is that malnourished women are always sick and weaker and therefore they are less able to care for their children, effectively. These children often grow up on minimum nutrients which result them in stunted growth, wasting and poor quality lives. The low socioeconomic people also cannot afford privatized healthcare due to its high financial demands and the governmental hospitals remain overcrowded
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