India contributes 38 per cent to the global burden of stunted children, said MK Bhan while delivering the second BNS Walia-PGIMER Golden Jubilee oration here on Saturday.
Quoting data from the lancet, he said that there is a trans-generational impact of under nutrition. Mothers who are underweight and stunted tend to produce babies who are underweight and stunted. MK Bhan, a Padma Bhushan awardee, while delivering a thought-provoking and engaging oration titled Accelerating Children’s Nutrition: Is There a Way forward, said that under nutrition of the unborn foetus can have surprisingly long lasting implications for health and development. It can cause changes in DNA which are detectable 60 years later.
He said that the optimum window period for nutritional intervention was from intrauterine life (when the baby is in the mother’s womb) to two years after birth. Balanced energy and protein intake and intake of iron and folic acid during pregnancy has been shown to improve the weight of the baby but the data regarding the utility of multiple micro nutrient supplements is not yet clear, said Bhan.
There is a clear relationship between open defecation and reduced height of children. Recent evidence shows that open defecation can explain 54 per cent of the inter-country variation in the growth of children.
Bhan dwelled upon the fascinating relationship between an unsanitary environment, alteration of bacterial composition of intestinal contents, and the height of children. An unsanitary environment not only causes episodes of diarrhea, which are obvious; but also causes a low-grade inflammation of the intestines, which does not manifest with an obvious disease but does affect the growth of children. While concluding the Padma Bhushan winner said that the causes and consequences of under nutrition cut across many sectors and so do the solutions.
The oration was organised by Sunit Singhi, organised in the auditorium of the Advanced Pediatric. The Oration was presided over by Prof Yogesh Chawla, director of PGIMER who welcomed, introduced and felicitated BNS Walia.