Review Article
Year: 2021 | Month: January | Volume: 11 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 157-162
The Universality of Inadequate Diet among Children in India: Can Poshan Abhiyaan be the Setu between IYCF Policy and Practice?
Komal Rathi1, Divya Tripathi2
1M.Sc. Food and Nutrition, PhD Research Scholar
2M.Sc, Food and Nutrition, (PhD Submitted), Research Fellow, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
Corresponding Author: Divya Tripathi
ABSTRACT
Appropriate complementary feeding practices for infants and young children after 6 months play a pivotal role in determining the child’s health and nutritional status. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) data on three core indicators of complementary feeding, minimum meal frequency (MMF), minimum dietary diversity (MDD), minimum adequate diet (MAD) showed that MMF, MDD, and MAD are poor across all the states. The national average remained quite low with only 9.6 % of the children achieving MAD.
Although national technical guidance on Infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices exists but policy and program actions have remained weak over the years. Can the Home-based Care for Young Child (HBYC) component of the Poshan Abhiyaan, address the barriers observed in the delivery and practice of IYCF recommendations and thus lead to improvement of the nutritional status of children which is crucial to achieving the sustainable development goals and targets.
Key words: Home-based Care for Young Child (HBYC); National family health survey (NFHS); Minimum adequate diet (MAD); Sustainable development goals (SDG).