Obesity in children on rise in India; problem has just begun, say experts

NEW DELHI: While malnutrition continues to remain a leading risk factor for deaths in under-5 children, accounting for 68.2% of the total under-5 deaths, at least 11.5% of children between the age of 2 and 4 years are overweight, shows a study published in the leading medical journal The Lancet on Wednesday.

The prevalence of obesity in Indian children increased significantly during 1990-2017, which is the period of the study, with an annual rise of 4.98%. The projected prevalence is 17.5% in 2030, an estimate which is worrying experts.

“It is a matter of concern as we have seen through certain other studies that about 9% children are pre-diabetic. A lot is to be blamed on their lifestyle which is largely sedentary, and wrong eating habits,” said Dr Vinod Paul, member, Niti Aayog.

The estimates were published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health by the India State-level Disease Burden Initiative, a collaboration between the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

The study shows 23 states have child overweight prevalence higher than the national prevalence, with Telangana and Delhi having prevalence as high as 23.2% and 23.1% respectively. At least 6 states have child overweight prevalence of more than 20%. “The problem of overweight or obese children has just started, and we have enough indicators before us to warn us that time is now to act. However, we must not forget that malnutrition in children in India is a bigger problem,” said Dr Balram Bhargava, director, ICMR.

The researchers analysed the disease burden, attributable to child and maternal malnutrition, and the trends in the malnutrition indicators from 1990 to 2017 in every state of India using all accessible data from multiple sources, as part of Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017.