Kashmiri children becoming obese, anemic: UNICEF Survey

A recent survey has revealed that children and adults in Kashmir are becoming obese or overweight and it could prove fatal if precautions are not taken.

The survey has pointed out that there is dire need to focus on child nutrition, while obesity and anemia are the markers of impending health issues in adults.

UNICEF prepared report, Results of Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC), for Ministry of Health and Family Welfare recently. The survey states that 10.8 percent adolescents in JK are obese or overweight. On the other hand, the same survey points out that 31.7 percent children are stunted (protein deficient) and 7.1 are wasted. Shockingly, 58.6 percent children and 53.4 percent adolescents are anemic. The data is an indicator of malnourishment, as per the report.

Dr Farooq Mir, noted senior pediatrician, believes that early childhood is the period that can determine much of the health outcomes of diet. “It is quite clear where the problem is. Wrong food selection at weaning and after by parents is putting children on a path of obesity and food preferences that are detrimental to their healthy growth,” he said.

This doctor as well as ample literature, points out to the need of changing lifestyles to bring about holistic and healthy growth in children. “Healthy foods need to be kept available to children and their access to unhealthy and junk foods has to be minimized. Schools and parents both have the responsibility,” Dr Mir said.

On the same note, Dr. Shariq Rashid Masoodi, senior Consultant endocrinology SKIMS Soura believes that parents have to become role models and act as pressure groups on schools. “Junk foods have to be a strict no-no at home and for school. Similarly, parents have to check what is available in school canteen. After all, a child spends at least eight hours daily in and around school,” he said.

Doctors believe that there is a need to create awareness about foods and their calorific and nutritional value. “Children mostly binge on empty calories. Be it chips, candies or soft drinks, there is no nutritional value, very little hunger satiation and huge calories,” Dr. Shahida Shireen, a general practitioner in Srinagar said. Empty calories are foods with ample calories but little nutrients like vitamins, minerals and fibre.

Recently, a Committee set up by Women and Child Development Ministry on Consumption of Junk Food by School Children and its availability to them submitted its report to GoI. The Committee has made a slew of recommendations to transform the fate of children. It has suggested a ‘comprehensive definition of junk food in the context of children’ and has stressed that all food items falling in the definition of junk food should be banned in the school canteens.

The committee has also advised government that vendors should not be permitted to sell these foods during school timings in a vicinity of 200 meters from any school.

Although, the recommendations are yet to be put into action, doctors believe that time is running out. “J&K is at the top of the list of obesity in India. Schools have to be freed from junk food,” Dr. Mir said. But the role of homes and parental habits cannot be ignored the experts believe. “There is a tendency to make chips and chocolates an incentive to children. Parents give these and other unhealthy foods as a reward to children. How can they then say that this food is bad,” Dr. Masoodi questions.