Economic growth in India has no automatic connection to reducing
undernutrition in Indian children and so further reductions in
the prevalence of childhood undernutrition are likely to depend
on direct investments in health and health-related programs.
These are the conclusions of a large study by researchers at the
Schools of Public Health at University of Michigan and Harvard
University, that is published in this week's PLoS Medicine.
Malavika Subramanyam, S V Subramanian and colleagues collected
data from the National Family Health Surveys conducted in India
in 1992-93 (28,066 children), 1998-99 (26,121 children) and
2005-06 (23,139 children), which use stratified, representative
samples of the population from every state of India. They used
the measurementsóweight-for-age, height-for-age, and weight-for-
heightóin these surveys to classify individual children's
nutritional status as underweight, stunting or wasting,
respectively, as per the World Health Organization Child Growth
Standards. The study report