The Global Hunger Index (GHI), in which India ranked 107th out of 121 countries in its latest report, exaggerates the measure of hunger, lacks statistical vigour and suffers from a problem of multiple counts, Union Health Ministry sources said on Tuesday.
Developed to ensure the world achieves ‘Zero Hunger’ by 2030 as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), GHI scores are derived from various UN and other multilateral agencies and based on the most recent revised data for each of the four indicators: undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. The Global Hunger Index gave India a score of 29.1, and labelled the level of hunger in the country as “serious”.
Citing the Indian Council of Medical Research, sources said the indicators do not measure hunger per se as these are not the manifestations of hunger alone.
Many of the measures that are used to evolve an index that measures hunger are “probably contextual,” officials said, adding “The GHI exaggerates the measure of hunger, lacks statistical vigour, has a problem of multiple counts, and gives higher representation to under-five children.”
In an earlier statement issued by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, it noted that three out of the four indicators used for the calculation of the index are those related to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population. “The fourth and most important indicator estimate of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3000,” it said in its October 15 statement.
According to the index, India’s child wasting rate, which is a strong indicator of mortality among children under five years of age, is at 19.3 per cent, the highest in the world. “India’s child wasting rate, at 19.3 per cent, is the highest of any country in the world and drives up the region’s average owing to India’s large population,” it said. Child wasting worsened in India from 15.1 per cent in 2012-16 to 19.3 per cent in 2017-21.
However, India showed improvement in two parameters of child stunting from 38.7 per cent in 2012-16 to 35.5 per cent in 2017-21 and child mortality from 4.6 per cent in 2014 to 3.3 per cent in 2020.
In its recent statement, officials said the indicators are not the consequences of hunger alone, as these manifestations are seen among the relatively rich as well. These indicators are the outcomes of complex interactions of factors such as drinking water, sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger. Interpreting ‘hunger’ based on health indicators of children is neither scientific nor rational, the sources said.
Citing National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data, sources said India has shown improvement in stunting and wasting and a significant reduction in under-five mortality rate (U5MR).
“According to NFHS-2015-16 & NSSO, the measured proportions of undernourishment, stunted and wasted children in the two wealth quantiles (4th and 5th) were 7.3, 25.7 and 18.6 per cent, respectively, while the under-five mortality per 1000 live births was 25.8),” sources said.
In the 2015-16 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) data, “stunting (27.1-38.2%) and wasting (14.2-20.4%) were significantly prevalent among children of normal body mass index and overweight mothers.”
Explaining the issue with using stunting as an indicator for measuring hunger, the GHI suffers from an “implicit assumption that those who are hungry are likely to be short-statured.” This can be contested since a child’s height is dependent on both maternal and paternal stature, they argued.
While the GHI did show improvement in child stunting, government officials also said, stunting has been declining rapidly even in underprivileged households and said: “it would not be correct to relate stunting in under-five children with hunger alone.”
Regarding child mortality as an indicator, officials said GHI makes the assumption that hunger is the major cause of the issue. “This is, however, not supported by the data on the cause of death for children under five years and thus it is questionable,” they observed.
‘Inappropriate and negative’
The index noted India is an example that shows the importance of subnational context when designing programs and policies targeting child stunting. “Researchers investigated the factors that contributed to a decline in stunting in four Indian states between 2006 and 2016: Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu,” it said.
The ministry, however, had said that the report was “disconnected from ground reality” and “deliberately” and does not really measure hunger. The report “deliberately ignores the tremendous efforts made by the government to ensure food security for the population, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic,” sources said.
“The matter has been taken up with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) not to use such estimates based on FIES (Food Insecurity Experience Scale) survey module data in July 2022 as the statistical output of the same will not be based on merit,” it added.
India is one of the few countries where indirect data on hunger had been collected till 2009-2010, through surveys that asked a couple of questions relating to the intake of two square meals a day, official said.
The statement was in reference to the “inappropriate and negative” framing of questions asked in the survey. The Centre had condemned the framing of questions and said, “For example, respondents were asked: During the last 12 months, was there a time when, because of lack of money or other resources you were worried you would not have enough food to eat? You ate less than you thought you should?”
Reiterating the Centre’s earlier response regarding the issue, an official source said: “Inclusion of such questions signifies that the agencies had pre-formed biases and did not search for facts based on relevant information about the delivery of nutritional support and assurance of food security by the Government.”
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