Diet quality, already alarmingly bad, is only likely to have deteriorated in India during the pandemic and in the wake of rising food prices in recent months. UN data for 2020 estimated nearly a billion Indians were unable to purchase a wholesome, nourishing diet. And a recent study found more than two-thirds of India’s rural population could not afford a diet that met India’s own dietary guidelines. More than half of respondents in a December 2021-January 2022 survey said they ate fruits, flesh foods, eggs or milk fewer than two or three times a month, while four in five respondents said the nutritional quality of the food they consumed had deteriorated since the pandemic.

For a country looking to reap the financial benefits of its growing young workforce, the economic implications of malnutrition among Indian children, adolescents and working-age adults are as significant as the costs for health and quality of life.

Rates of stunting among pre-schoolers – a key marker of chronic undernutrition – fell substantially from 48 percent in 2005-06 to 38.4 percent in 2015-16. But by 2019-21 progress against stunting had slowed, falling less than three percentage points to 35.5 percent.

One in five children in India are too thin — a statistic that has barely moved since the early 1990s. It’s one of the highest rates in the world, and a major risk factor for child mortality.

Simultaneously, each new national health survey reveals growing numbers of overweight or obese Indian men and women, as well as related increases in linked diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and hypertension.