Diets, Nutrition, and Poverty - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 340

Our findings on determinants of CIAF yield new insights. The higher the age of the
household head, the lower is the composite index. Surprisingly, there is no relationship
between CIAF and caste of the household, gender of the household head, or the marital
status of the household head. Maternal education reduces it, because it is linked to better
child care and healthier diets. Quality of kitchen—whether it has a vent—contributes
to more hygienic living conditions and thus reduces CIAF. Rural areas and metros had
higher undernutrition than nonmetro urban areas. Above all, the higher the income,
the lower is child undernutrition. Food prices affect child undernutrition significantly
as changes in relative prices induce substitutions between food commodities and in
nutrient intake. Although prices of cereals and pulses have a negative effect, those of
sugar and eggs have a positive effect.
Following Svedberg (2000, 2007) and Nandy et al. (2005), our analysis with the IHDS
focuses on the links between susceptibility to infectious diseases (diarrhoea, acute respi-
ratory infection (ARI)) and CIAF but the results are mixed, as discussed later. Except
for wasted and underweight, and stunted only, in all other groups the prevalence of
diarrhea was higher than in the reference group of no failure. The highest prevalence
rate was among those children who were simultaneously stunted and underweight, and
those who were wasted, underweight, and stunted. These differences are statistically
significant.36
The differences in the prevalence of ARI are less striking. The highest prevalence
occurs among stunted and underweight, followed by wasted and underweight children.
Somewhat surprisingly, children with the triple failure of wasting, stunting, and under-
weight had a lower prevalence rate than that of no failure. However, only the difference
between stunted and underweight and no-failure children was statistically significant.
Thus, there is support for the disaggregated classification of undernourished children
for understanding better the prevalence of infectious diseases. Specifically, those with
more than one failure were worse-off in this respect than children with no failure . The pol-
icy implications seem clear: There is a strong case for income growth acceleration along
with food price stabilization. Careful attention must be given also to the overhaul of sup-
plementary child feeding programs such as the Integrated Child Development Services
(ICDS). Another priority is awareness building for hygienic living while female literacy
grows.
Affluence, Obesity, and
Noncommunicable Diseases
Dietary transition involves not just a more varied and nutritionally balanced diet and
higher levels of food hygiene but also consumption of energy-dense foods—high in
salts, fats, and sugars— that are linked to higher prevalence of diet-related noncommu-
nicable diseases (NCDs).37 The excess energy from these foods may affect children and