New Delhi: India is a nation of young
people. Around 88 per cent of the world's adolescents (between 10-19 years of
age) live in developing countries, with India accounting for around 243
million, more than any other country. At the same time, India also is home to a
large number of children suffering from malnutrition and otherwise preventable
diseases.
The country is confident and reliant on
the youth to enable the Government to help India achieve scaling heights. But
what we are failing to achieve, despite consistent efforts, is a healthy and
holistic life for women and children of our country.
Studies suggest that India is among the
countries with high prevalence of anaemia across all age groups, particularly
among 56% of female adolescents. In women, anaemia may even become the
underlying cause of maternal mortality and perinatal mortality. It weakens
women's ability to survive childbirth, makes them more susceptible to
infections, and leaves them with fewer reserves to recover from illness.
Girls in India traditionally eat last
and least, this often leads to poorer nutritional intake thereby making them
malnourished. This signifies that all these young girls are vulnerable to a
host of diseases and problems if their nutrition levels are not optimized.
An adolescent girl who is well nourished
is more likely to perform well in school and be more empowered as an adult
woman than her poorly nourished counterpart, which enhances her family and
child care-taking capacity later in life as a mother. She is also more likely
to give birth to a healthy baby if she delays the age of marriage and pregnancy,
and is already well-nourished. This in turn improves her child's chances of
survival, physical growth and brain development, with significant health and
economic benefits across the lifetime, thereby breaking the intergenerational
cycle of under-nutrition and poverty.
Taking cognizance of this, the Ministry
of Health and Family Welfare has developed the National Guideline for Control
of Iron Deficiency Anaemia to address both preventive and curative aspect of
this challenge across all life stages and various levels of care. Therefore,
MoHFW and UNICEF together came up with Weekly Iron and Folic Acid
Supplementation (WIFS) programme that caters to both the adolescent girls in
and out of school with a school based and an Integrated Child Development
Services (ICDS) programme.
The magnitude of anaemia together with
the associated adverse health, development and economic consequences,
highlights the need for intensified action to address this public health
problem.
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