THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary - April 30, 2018 - Topic 2

Food first: on child nutrition

The central principle that should guide the Centre in improving maternal and child nutrition is that early childhood is the foundation for the health and well-being of an individual. Tinkering with the existing national programme of providing hot-cooked meals to children three to six years old, and take-home rations for younger children and pregnant and lactating mothers is fraught with danger. Attempts to substitute meals or rations with factory-made nutrients will inject commercialisation into a key mission, and upset the nutritional basis of the scheme. 

Good sense has prevailed, and the newly-formed inter-ministerial National Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges has chosen to continue the current practice, overruling the Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, who proposed distribution of packaged nutrients to beneficiaries. Raising nutritional standards for young children has become a policy imperative only in recent years, with the National Food Security Act, 2013, incorporating the mandate in Schedule II, and the Supplementary Nutrition (Integrated Child Development Services Scheme) Rules, 2017, laying down entitlements. Food and Public Distribution Minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s emphasis on strengthening these legal guarantees by providing more nutritious hot-cooked meals and rations with the help of local self-help groups is to be welcomed. If the ICDS scheme, now called the Anganwadi Services Scheme, is to achieve better outcomes, it must focus on the provision of physical infrastructure and funding, besides closer monitoring of the nutrition mission. Theoretically, the mission covers every child, but in practice it is not accessible to all.

When the Centre recently launched POSHAN Abhiyaan, an integrator that will build capacity among nutrition workers, it acknowledged that while official data show a reduction in some of the depressing aspects of women and child health, the ground reality is far from comforting: the National Family Health Survey-4 shows a drop in underweight and stunted children under five years of age compared to the previous survey, but the absolute numbers are still high. An estimated 35.7% children are underweight and 38.4% are stunted in that age group. The body mass index of 22.9% women aged 15-49 indicates chronic energy deficiency. These figures should cause alarm that even after a long period of robust economic growth, India has not achieved a transformation. To accelerate the pace of progress, POSHAN Abhiyaan should rigorously measure levels of access and quality of nutrition, and publish the data periodically. It should be pointed out that NFHS data show several States performing worse than the national average. In a recent report, Nourishing India, the NITI Aayog refers to acute malnutrition levels of about 25% in some States. There is no quick fix, and the answer to better nutrition lies in fresh, wholesome and varied intake.

Vocabulary

Tinker: attempt to repair or improve something in a casual or desultory way, often to no useful effect.

Example: He spent hours tinkering with the car

Synonyms: fiddle with, adjust, fix, try to mend, play about with, fool with

Upset: make someone unhappy, disappointed, or worried.

Example: The accusation upset her

Synonyms: distress, trouble, perturb, dismay, disturb, discompose

Distribution: the action of sharing something out among a number of recipients.

Example: She had it printed for distribution among her friends

Synonyms: giving out, dealing out, doling out, handing out/around

Mandate: an official order or commission to do something.

Example: A mandate to seek the release of political prisoners

Synonyms: instruction, directive, decree, command, order, injunction

Entitlement: the fact of having a right to something.

Example: Full entitlement to fees and maintenance should be offered

Synonyms: right, prerogative, claim, permission, dispensation, privilege

Emphasis: special importance, value, or prominence given to something.

Example: They placed great emphasis on the individual's freedom

Synonyms: prominence, importance, significance, value, stress, weight

Accessible: able to be reached or entered.

Example: The town is accessible by bus

Synonyms: reachable, attainable, approachable, obtainable

Aspect: a particular part or feature of something.

Example: The financial aspect can be overstressed

Synonyms: feature, facet, side, characteristic, particular, detail, angle, slant

Absolute: not qualified or diminished in any way; total.

Example: Absolute secrecy

Synonyms: complete, total, utter, out-and-out, outright, entire, perfect

Robust: strong and healthy; vigorous.

Example: The Caplans are a robust, healthy lot

Synonyms: strong, vigorous, sturdy, tough, powerful, solid, muscular

Rigorous: extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate.

Example: The rigorous testing of consumer products

Synonyms: meticulous, conscientious, punctilious, careful, diligent, attentive

Wholesome: conducive to or suggestive of good health and physical well-being.

Example: The food is plentiful and very wholesome

Synonyms: healthy, health-giving, healthful, good (for one), nutritious