Key Points
New Delhi: Indias plan to introduce country-specific growth standards for children in order to gauge their nutritional status is likely to take several more years to become a reality, ThePrint has learnt...
Last year, following directions from the Union health ministry, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had formed a panel to prepare India-specific growth standards amid concerns that the World Health Organisations (WHOs) weight and height references, which are currently used, are not suitable in the Indian context...
But now, the Centre has decided that this committee will instead commission a local study of children aged 0-2 years to assess their growth patterns, government sources told ThePrint...
Based on WHOs Child Growth Standards, the prevalence of stunting impaired growth in children in India at 35.5 percent according to NFHS-5 (2019-2021), for instance, is very high, which may not be giving the actual scenario of the Indian situation, he further said...
Pune-based paediatrician and child growth researcher Dr Anuradha Khadilkar welcomed the decision to plan an Indian study for assessing the growth of children, especially for charting the growth of an individual child.. Comparing Indian babies with WHO references puts an unnecessary burden on mothers and families, and in older children it raises the risk of unnecessary investigations which increases the cost of healthcare, she told ThePrint...
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